The fire started in the attic of Building No. 1204 of the Moss Rose low-income housing complex in Killeen a little before noon Friday.

In less than two hours 20 residents had lost their homes.

low-income housing

Moss Rose Homes is located just one mile from the charred concrete foundation of the former Casa Tejas Apartments. Casa Tejas is another low-income apartment complex that burned last September, killing three people and leaving 32  homeless.

Both Casa Tejas and Moss Rose were occupied by residents on welfare assistance programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Residents of low-income housing often live where they do because they have to, and when tragedy strikes them have nowhere left to turn.

Fire, code violations

On the night of the Casa Tejas apartment fire no fire alarms went off, witnesses said.

According to documents obtained from the city of Killeen through the Texas Public Information Act, the Casa Tejas apartments had a long history of code violation and had not had a fire inspection since it was built in 1974.

The city has no laws requiring multifamily housing to be inspected.

In addition to obvious fire dangers, since 2000, the building had been cited for eight code violations, including two violations of the property maintenance code, which requires that buildings maintain international standards for the safety, health and well being its occupants.

When I covered that story for the newspaper, one resident told me that the only staircase down from the second floor stood in front of the apartment where the fire was  burning. Residents on the second floor – without a safe fire exit – began throwing their children off the balcony in a panic to escape the flames.

Killeen Mayor Dan Corbin has been outspoken about unscrupulous landlords not maintaining their properties in the city. However, when the City Council drew up their plan for 2013, no line item was made for establishing stricter building codes – nor a program to inspect apartments for fire safety.

More regulation = higher rent

As with all regulations, enforcing fire codes will cost money. It would require city inspectors to make the rounds to hundreds of apartment complexes at least once a year (just like they do with restaurant grease traps and chemical storage facilities).

The cost would likely transferred to the property owners through inspection fees and ultimately paid for by the renters through their rent. For renters in low-income housing, many of whom are disabled or unable to work. For them higher rent could mean homelessness.

One option: HUD funding

The newstramp has already expounded the city’s homeless problem. Each year $1.5 million is allotted to the city from HUD (seperate from the money that funds the Moss Rose addition) for projects to help the city’s indigent population. City officials should think about whether that money is better spent on these things like “pocket parks,” as city staff has suggested, or the most basic safety inside Kilen’s low-income housing, where thousands the city’s residents live.