Fire rips through low-income apartments in Minneapolis

Fire rips through low-income apartments in Mpls

A building owned by a Minneapolis church that offers low-income housing was gutted by a fire.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A low-income apartment building in Minneapolis owned by a local church was gutted by a fire earlier this month. The building, owned by a church, is a critical resource for people who now have nowhere else to go.

The church says it doesn't have the funds to make repairs. Orlando Jordan, a representative from Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church, recalls the devastating fire that swept through a low-income apartment building on 8th Street South in Minneapolis on July 3rd. The fire destroyed half a dozen units, leaving the inhabitants without a home.

"This whole apartment was damaged. We had to gut this out. The closets, the carpet," said Orlando, whose church owns and manages the building.

The fire started in the cockloft and took some time to extinguish, leading to significant smoke and water damage. "Everything he had in here was basically trash," Orlando sadly remarked about one of the tenants.

Investigators have determined that the blaze was an accident, likely caused by overheating of the building's electrical components. A nearby transformer had appeared to blow just a week prior. Orlando's main concern now is to repair the building and restore the homes of the tenants.