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16

June 1 • 2017

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AMY SINGER

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER




hen fire burned through
their apartments
at Baptist Manor in
Farmington Hills the evening of
May 10, six clients of Jewish Family
Service and Jewish Senior Life
received immediate help, from
finding interim places to stay in
guest apartments at Jewish Senior
Life residences to receiving coun-
seling from agency social workers.
Local news sources reported
that fire burned through the D
wing of the Gamma building on
the premises and displaced up to
148 residents. Four residents were
hospitalized for smoke inhalation
and minor injuries. Though it has
yet to be confirmed by Baptist
Manor management, residents who
heard a blast suspect that someone
smoking a cigarette in the proxim-
ity of an open oxygen tank caused
the fire.
Beverly Goldberg was in her
second-story apartment at the
Gamma building at the retire-
ment complex when she heard
the smoke alarm. She grabbed her
purse and cane and headed for the
stairwell. The purse, the clothing
she was wearing, and a few singed
and waterlogged photos are about
all she has left.
“Still, I thank my lucky stars that
I was in better health than my other
neighbors, who are in wheelchairs,”
Goldberg said. “The apartment
management leaves at five, so we
were on our own to get to safety and
waited out in the cold for nearly an
hour before management came to
let us into an adjacent building.”
Goldberg’s daughter Alyssa Tobias,
a geriatric specialist social worker,
said in a phone conversation last week
outside the burned building, “There
was just complete devastation.”
Residents had limited access to
the apartments, but she salvaged a
few mementos, including a life-sized
cutout of her father, Howard, who
passed away seven years ago to the
date of this fire. Family friends ral-
lied around Goldberg and donated
gift cards, clothing and household
items. Now, they are working with
JSL to possibly transition Goldberg
from a temporary guest apartment
to a permanent one at Hechtman in

Beverly Goldberg outside the fire-damaged building

West Bloomfield.
Just as they responded after the
2014 summer floods and this win-
ter’s power outage, social workers
with JSL and JFS said they are put-
ting plans into place to resettle their
displaced clients as quickly as they
can.
“Our senior clients are our
responsibility no matter where they
live,” said Jewish
Family Service CEO
Perry Ohren. “As
with other crises, we
had our social work-
ers on the ground
helping our clients
transition to either
temporary or per-
manent housing and
Perry Ohren
helping them cope
with the trauma of
being displaced by fire.”
The folks from JSL were also quick
to step in. “These people lost pre-
cious heirlooms like wedding and
family photo albums — those tan-
gible pieces that make up a family
history. Beyond helping them with
regaining the physical comforts of
a home, JSL had social workers on
hand immediately to help our cli-

ents and their families cope with
this traumatic loss,” Ohren added.
According to JSL Executive
Director of Aging
Services Barbra
Giles, LMSW, ACSW,
within the first six
hours of the fire,
the agency moved
clients into tem-
porary residencies
at Fleishman and
Barbra Giles
Hechtman. Another
is staying at a resi-
dence in Oak Park
and others have sheltered with fam-
ily or friends.
Giles acknowledged that the expe-
rience to the client and their fami-
lies can be distressing, especially
when waiting to get word about a
permanent housing arrangement.
“We are mobilizing as best as we
can and, going forward, we have
a clear strategy to secure housing
for our displaced clients. However,
when they are in the thick of things
and still in shock from something
like a fire, a client may feel over-
whelmed by the process and the
paperwork,” Giles added.
Alicia Rose, geriatric care case
supervisor at Jewish Family Service,
said just as in past incidents such
as the 2014 flood and this winter’s
power outage, the social workers
following the fire went immediately
into “crisis mode” to locate their
clients at Baptist Manor, which
included making calls to area emer-
gency rooms to find clients who had
no family.
According to Rose, restoration at
Baptist Manor will take between six
and eight months to reopen. The
other wings sustained water and
electrical damage and will be livable
within two months.
“This fire was one of the larger cri-
ses we have had to respond to, and
our young social workers did so with
great intuition and compassion,”
Rose said. “Baptist Manor housed
many of our Jewish clients, and they
have created a wonderful commu-
nity there. But for some, who had
wanted to transition into a Jewish
Senior Life community, the transi-
tion is happening more quickly than
anticipated because of the fire.” •

