Residents displaced by Calumet City condo fire eligible for low-interest loans

The U.S. Small Business Administration has opened an office at The Park of River Oaks condominiums in Calumet City, the scene of a devastating Memorial Day fire that left a woman dead and displaced dozens, offering low-interest loans to affected residents.

The office inside the clubhouse is staffed by SBA personnel and Kim Anderson was among the first to line up Friday to apply.

She said she has lived in the complex for eight years and is now living in an empty unit on the property that her sister owns. Anderson said she hoped a low-interest loan could help with cleaning the smoke damage left in her fifth-floor unit following the May 30 fire.

“I just miss my unit,” Anderson, 63, said Friday. “I’ve been so depressed since the fire.”

Wilhelmina K. Williamson, 85, died of thermal and inhalation injuries in the fire, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Another seven people were injured in the fire, including three firefighters.

Williamson lived on the seventh floor of the building at 200 Park Ave., where the fire broke out. It is connected to two other buildings that face River Oaks Golf Course.

Some 200 residents were displaced, and Calumet City officials provided financial help for them such as paying for temporary housing and food, and the city said after the fire it had arranged for some residents to stay at hotels.

Gloreatha Jones who lived on the fifth floor toward the rear, or east side, of the building where the fire broke out said she applied for an SBA loan in hopes she could rent a small apartment.

She said she initially spent time in four area hotels, then with her sister in Chicago and is now staying with her daughter in Dolton. Jones said she has been told it could be two years before she’s able to move back into her condo.

Jones owns a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit at The Park, but wants to move out of her daughter’s place until her condo is fixed.

“I just need something small,” she said.

Jones said she did not have enough insurance coverage on her unit to cover the amount of damage that was done.

“I never thought the place would burn,” she said.

Anderson said many residents at The Park are older, and she wonders how they have been managing since the fire.

“There are a lot of people older than me here who are in walkers and wheelchairs, and they’re on a fixed income,” she said.

Anderson said she was not home when the fire broke out, but got a text message telling her about it.

Jones was on the balcony of her unit, which faces the pool, and she heard a woman shouting up from the pool area warning other residents about the fire. Jones said she pulled the fire alarm and quickly left the building.

She said her unit sustained mainly water damage, but there was virtually nothing she was able to salvage. Asked if she thinks she’ll ever be able to return to her condo, Jones gave a hopeful look.

“I love this place,” she said.

The SBA is making loans available in response to a July 1 letter from Gov. J. B. Pritzker requesting a disaster declaration.

For condo owners, home loans are available, and SBA limits loans to a maximum of $40,000 to repair or replace personal property, and the maximum loan to repair or replace real estate is $200,000. Loans can be repaid over a period of up to 30 years, and applying for a loan does not commit to actually taking the loan if it’s approved, according to Janel Finley, an SBA spokeswoman working at the outreach center.

If the borrower doesn’t have access to credit elsewhere, the interest rate on home loans is just under 1.7%, but rises to 3.3% if they do have the ability to obtain a loan through other sources, according to the SBA.

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The loan office is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. It will close July 21.

Homeowners have until Sept. 6 to file loan applications, and can do so at the office or by phone, 800-659-2955.

It’s not just residents of the building who are eligible, Finley said.

Businesses that may have been affected because residents of the condominiums no longer patronize them can apply for economic injury loans, she said. The deadline to file those loan applications is April 5, 2023.

Firefighters responded at 7 p.m. May 30 to the complex and encountered “heavy fire” coming from a second-floor unit at the rear, or east side, of the 200 building, which is connected to other buildings in The Park. The fire extended to the seventh floor, according to Calumet City fire Chief Glen Bachert.

A final report on the fire’s cause has not yet been completed, but indications are that the fire was started accidentally, according to Bachert.

mnolan@tribpub.com