Going home

With soiled carpet and water-soaked walls replaced, the first round of residents moved back into the Canal Senior Apartments Monday and everyone is expected to be back home by Christmas, staff says.

That is ahead of schedule and good news for dozens of residents who have been staying at a local hotel while construction crews frantically worked to get the three-story, low-income property back open following a small fire, which set off two sprinkler heads and flooded the complex with enough water to warrant ripping out nearly everything in one half of the building.

On Monday, 19 first floor residents moved back in with the help of the Senior Center and local volunteers. That floor received the least amount of damage with the sprinklers going off in a third floor apartment.

Art Martino was one of the first back in. A seven-year resident of the complex, Martino said despite the inconvenience of being displaced for more than a month, things have been going pretty good.

His biggest grievance Monday: his cable box and computer werent hooked up and he didnt know how to make sense of a ball of cables and cords left on his desk.

While a content company had boxed everything up, taking pictures of everyones rooms, meticulously labeling and storing items so things could be put back just as they were found, things werent perfect, but close to it.

Michele Bailey, property manager, said the content crew had put the books back in the order they were found in one apartment and managed to place dozens of small figurines in another units curio cabinet just so.

It is impressive, said Andrew Lasuen, a regional manager with Syringa Property Management, which offers low-income housing throughout the West.

Helping Martino get organized were two elders, Curtis and Anderson, from a local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The young men said several members of the church were helping residents move back in, helping in any way they could, even though neither knew much about cable box installation.

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Going home