NEWS: THE FIGHT TO FIX DC HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE CLIMATE: MAPPING

DC Health Annoyance

Another budget cycle goes by without removing barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants in D.C.

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Mitch Ryals

@MitchRyals By some accounts, Ward 7Councilmember Vince Gray is in a slump. Over the past five months, Gray has lost a handful of hotly debated legislative efforts.

He’s twice tried and failed to stop a halfway house from opening in his ward. He carried water for Mayor Muriel Bowser’s unsuccessful efforts to meddle in a lucrative Medicaid contract. Along the way, he accused his fellow councilmembers of contract steering, and they returned the favor. In May, Gray asked his Council colleagues to pour more money into United Medical Center to avoid triggering a financial control board—a board that he himself created (with agreement from the rest of the Council) by reducing the cap on the subsidy D.C. provides to keep the hospital running. A narrow majority of councilmembers were unwilling to bail him and the hospital out.

As the D.C. Council finalized the 2022 budget, Gray whiffed again—this time in his yearslong quest to fully fix a problem with the D.C. Healthcare Alliance. The locally funded program provides health insurance for more than 15,000 low-income immigrants who don’t qualify for Medicaid, many of whom are undocumented.

For the past decade, D.C. has required Alliance enrollees to reapply for their health insurance in person every six months. Applicants would line up outside Department of Human Services locations as early as 3 or 4 a.m. to get appointments. About 600 to 700 people, roughly half of those up for recertification each month, fail to do so and lose their coverage, an effect of the requirement to reapply in person twice a year, advocates say. The onerous chore does not apply to traditional DC Medicaid applicants, who renew their coverage once a year.

The recently passed 2022 Budget Support Act does include some reforms to the Alliance program. But major changes don’t fully kick in until 2025. Alliance enrollees are currently still required to reapply every six months from now through September 2022, but won’t have to do so in person. From October 2022 until 2025, enrollees may complete only one of their two required reapplications in person. After March of 2025, they will only have to reapply once a year, but may have to go in person. First-time applicants are still required to register in person, according to Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage.

During the public health emergency, Bowser allowed Alliance enrollees to keep their health insurance without reapplying. The public health emergency ended in July, but a general public emergency remains in place through Oct. 8.

Damon King, director of policy advocacy at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, believes the Council’s failure to build on Bowser’s pandemic-induced policy marks another lost opportunity. And Bowser shares some of the blame, King says.

“The administration has now had six years to fix this,” he says. “They did inherit the policy, but having inherited it and having heard testimony … year after year, they’ve had ample opportunity to address this on their own, and they’ve declined to do so.”

Gray sees the incremental changes to the Alliance as progress, according to a staffer familiar with his thinking. He pushes back against the notion of a legislative losing streak. “In the Fiscal Year 2022 budget, we secured significant investments for Ward 7, Birth-toThree, and citywide health equity,” Gray says in an emailed statement. Among the highlights he included: $1.9 million for school-based mental health services expansion, $365.9 million toward building a new health care system east of the Anacostia River, nearly $127 million toward fair pay for child care workers, and $24 million for the Deanwood Library.

What is a simple solution to a major problem with Alliance has been complicated over the years, as lawmakers tripped over each other to fix it. A clusterfuck of legislation passed since 2017, a lack of funding, and what Gray believes is an overestimation by the CFO of the total cost of reforms have stood in the way.

Meanwhile, Alliance enrollees such as Selene Lara, who have had to line up outside DHS locations at ungodly hours just to keep their health insurance, are once again left waiting for reforms sought for the past decade.

Twice a year for the past eight years, Lara has stood in line before sunrise to apply to keep her health insurance. She recalls one particularly hellish rendezvous about three years ago.

It was January, the dead of winter, and she and her partner arrived at the DHS building on New York Avenue NE around 5 a.m. Others were already waiting, she recalls. They brought their own chairs.

Lara, 30, had her then-3-month-old daughter in tow. It was so cold that she and her partner took turns waiting with the infant in a nearby Starbucks while the other held their place in line. They weren’t let into the building until 8 a.m., she recalls. When it was her turn to see a caseworker, her daughter started to cry. The caseworker became angry and refused to help them until the infant quieted down, Lara says. She tried everything—talking, singing, rocking. At one point, her partner stood up to walk around, but the caseworker said he couldn’t leave the cubicle.

“It was really upsetting and sad,” says Lara, who is now a community health worker for La Clínica del Pueblo. “It’s a service that you need. Like, oh my god, I understand why people don’t come here. They really don’t care. At that point, I was crying.”

When the caseworker finally processed their application, Lara says she was told she was missing documentation and needed to come back. She says she had to return five more times before she was able to complete the process. On one visit, the system was down, so caseworkers couldn’t enter her information, Lara says. During another appointment, a caseworker entered her income incorrectly.

Rodrigo Stein, La Clínica’s director of health equity and community partnerships, says Lara’s experience is not unique.

Lara speaks fluent English, but many Alliance enrollees don’t, Stein says. Clients report that caseworkers rarely speak Spanish, and though DHS has translation services, they’re not always available, Stein says, and they’re sometimes ineffective.

“We still have technology barriers, waiting a long time over the phone, and poorly translated documents,” Stein says. Enrollees “have to ask landlords for proof of residence.

Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray

Imagine doing that twice a year. Lots of immigrant residences are doubling up, so they’re not necessarily signing a lease. It’s an excessive amount of documentation for an assistance program that should be [recertified] yearly like Medicaid.”

“There’s no reason for the Alliance to have a different level of scrutiny unless you see it through a lens of ‘we can’t trust the people applying for this,’” he says.

Alliance enrollees, by definition, don’t earn a lot of money. To qualify, residents cannot earn more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which is currently $2,818 a month for a two-person household. Many clients are hourly workers, Stein says. They must take unpaid time off work twice a year to reapply—more often if they don’t have all the right paperwork.

“Many people go without health insurance during the renewal process,” he says, including insulin users and those who are pregnant.

The barriers that Stein and King want removed were erected in 2011, at the beginning of then-Mayor Vince Gray’s administration. A staffer in Gray’s Council office explains that concerns about nonresidents enrolling in the program prompted the in-person reapplication requirements. D.C. was facing a budget gap of more than $322 million at the time. Requiring proof of residency every six months removed people from the program and lowered the cost.

King, who has been pushing for removal of those requirements since 2017 (his organization has been pushing for far longer), hasn’t seen nonresidents in the program.

“I don’t think that has been our experience when it comes to working with folks who need healthcare through this program,” he says. “I think the policy is a draconian response to that concern.”

The Council started its efforts to reverse the policy in 2017. A confusing puzzle of bills passed since then amended and reamended each other. Though the bills that will change the process are legally approved, some are “subject to appropriation,” meaning they don’t go into effect until the Council dedicates funds to implement them.

Therein lies the problem. Over the years, the CFO’s office has projected the cost of removing the recertification requirements at anywhere from $59 million to $105 million over the District’s four-year budget plan—not pocket change. The projections are based on the number of people expected to remain in the program if the stringent recertification requirements are lifted.

In a budget work session this cycle, Gray said he disagrees with the CFO’s estimates. But he still had to work within them. Through the Committee on Health, which he chairs, Gray proposed cutting more than 100 positions across three agencies to meet the approximately $59 million price tag for Alliance reforms.

Some of the positions Gray proposed cutting will support the District’s shift away from police response to emergencies, as well as mental health services in public schools. The recommendations did not sit well with pretty much anybody.

At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman said the cuts amount to a “gimmick,” and “are contrary to our goals of building a health equitable city.” At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson asked simply, “What are we doing?” In a letter sent to the Council ahead of the budget votes, Bowser called Gray’s recommendations “reckless,” and said that they threaten critical programs.

Gray’s original recommendation wasn’t approved. The Council ultimately passed a budget that requires enrollees to recertify every six months, but doesn’t require them to do it in person. Starting in April 2025, enrollees only need to reapply once a year, but they may be required to do so in person. Gray also created a fund that will collect unspent money in the Department of Healthcare Finance’s budget in the coming years and direct it toward Alliance reforms.

Although King believes full reforms should come sooner than 2025, he gives Gray and Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who has also worked on the issue, credit for their persistence. He notes that the budget process hampers legislators’ ability to fund expensive projects. Councilmembers must largely work within the budgets for the cluster of agencies under their respective committees.

If an issue is high profile enough, legislators will move funding back and forth between their committees. But for programs that serve populations that are less visible or have less leverage, like the Alliance, it’s difficult to find money for big changes.

Turnage is beginning an 18-month study to determine how keeping the six-month reapplication requirement, but eliminating the inperson requirement, impacts enrollment. The results will help inform the projected costs of permanently removing barriers.

“It’s a situation in which this policy has been allowed to persist far longer than appropriate,” King says. “It really comes down to policy makers making the commitment to find the funds for it.”

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Alarming Trend

Despite the existence of a free smoke alarm program, District residents are still dying in house fires without basic early-warning systems.

By Amanda Williams

Contributing Writer The beeping started around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 25.

Tucked into an upstairs bedroom, Stanley and Louise Butler were fast asleep. Their 11-year-old grandson, Sekai, was sleeping just down the hall.

When those three exaggerated beeps echoed throughout the house, a high-pitched cacophony was able to rouse the deepest of sleepers.

“I could hear my husband saying, ‘There’s smoke, there’s smoke, I can’t breathe,’” says retired teacher Louise Butler, 67. “We all met in the hallway and we linked arms and we came down the stairs. The smoke was just billowing up at us. Once we got to the door, we were able to unlock it and go out, but it was frightening. It was horrific.”

Following the route Sekai had mapped for his Boy Scout first responder badge, the three escaped the house, led by retired Reverend Stanley Butler, 64. The fire started with a space heater in the sunroom of their brick colonial on Alabama Avenue SE, but it didn’t stay there. Thick smoke quickly spread to every room in the house.

The tinkling of broken glass joined the chorus of beeps as flames shot through heat-shattered windows. Louise thinks the smoke alarm is the only reason they made it out the door at all.

“Had that smoke alarm not alerted us, that fire would have been at the door. It would have been right where we would have gone out,” she says. “The fire was coming fast and furious.”

By the time fire crews arrived, flames were pouring out of third-story windows. Firefighters stood on the sunroom roof, shooting water into the floors above. Officials said three firefighters were later treated for minor injuries.

The fire destroyed the Butlers’ home, leaving them with little more than what they were wearing.

“We are just so blessed that we were able to get out of there with the clothes on our backs,” Louise says.

Nine District residents have died in house fires this year, including an 8-year-old boy and an elderly couple. Despite a decade-old program to install and update smoke alarms for free, only five of the eight homes where these fires occurred had smoke alarms, according to data from D.C. Fire and EMS.

“Smoke detectors are critical and they definitely save lives,” says D.C. Fire Marshal and Deputy Chief Mitch Kannry, who leads fire prevention efforts for the District. “We do

Darrow Montgomery

The exterior of Stanley and Louise Butler’s home on Alabama Avenue SE

know without a smoke detector, the chances of survival are impacted because you don’t have that early warning should something minor start.”

A February 2021 study from the National Fire Protection Association examined home fire deaths from 2014 to 2018 and found that nearly three out of five were caused by fires in homes without functioning smoke alarms. The study suggests that a person is 55 percent less likely to die in a house fire if that house has a working smoke detector.

The D.C. Fire Prevention Team is currently targeting this problem with the A’sia Sutton Smoke Alarm Giveaway and Installation Program. Named for 5-year-old A’sia Sutton, who died in a 2007 fire in a home without working smoke alarms, the program sends fire department personnel into homes to install and service smoke alarms for free.

According to data from FEMS, the department has installed almost 700 detectors so far this fiscal year, which ends in September. That is on par with the 863 installed in 2019 and well above the 345 installed in 2018.

For the 2020 fiscal year, which includes the early months of the pandemic and a brief pause in the program, the department only installed 148 total smoke alarms.

But FEMS’ stock of alarms still exceeds the number of requests and completed installations. Pepco donates around 1,000 smoke alarms annually to area fire departments, according to company spokesperson Jamie Caswell. Caswell says FEMS has received 16,750 devices over the past 16 years.

Around 2,000 of those detectors are sitting in a storage closet, Kannry says.

“I would love for our inventory to be much lower and to get these detectors where they can be used the most,” Kannry says. “We do installations based on request primarily, so if we don’t have the requests coming in, we can’t do those installations.”

The National Fire Protection Association recommends replacing smoke alarms every 10 years and replacing batteries every six months. Some newer models have built-in batteries that last 10 years.

Kannry says the devices FEMS installs sometimes sit in storage for a year or two before landing in a home.

“Even if a detector is two years old, if we can still get eight years out of that, that’s still a large coverage area,” Kannry says. “And if it expires in eight years, we’d be more than happy to come out in eight years and put another one in.”

Homeowners can request free smoke alarms by calling 311 in the District or contacting the fire prevention division directly. Smoke detectors are also installed during broader community outreach events, which Kannry credits with boosting the department’s 2021 installation numbers. Last year, the prevention team began targeting different neighborhoods each month to install smoke alarms and preach fire safety.

They also intensify outreach in any neighborhood where a fatal fire has occurred.

Of the eight homes where fatal fires occurred this year, investigators have

Stay or Sell? The 5 Things Every DC Homeowner Needs to Know Right Now

Written by Jonas Sterling McGaha, Founder, The Sterling Group

The DC real estate market has been breaking historic records in 2021, with listing and offer prices at all-time highs and inventory volume and time on market at all-time lows.

The District has never seen anything quite like the current market, leaving homeowners wondering if now is the time to sell or if they're better off waiting for the market to calm.

Any DC homeowner on the fence about selling now should consider the following fi ve factors before making their decision.

1) Fall is one of the best times to sell

August and September can be a bit slow on the DC real estate market. Sellers are competing against the sweltering heat, summer vacation plans, an infl ux of tourists chasing locals away, and back-to-school chaos. But every year, the market turns upward as the area heads into the pleasant autumn season.

According to the real estate data fi rm Homelight, October is the best month of the year to sell your house fast in DC. But that window of opportunity in the autumn closes quickly, as the December through March period becomes the slowest time of the year for DC house sales.

Homeowners who wish to sell need to start the listing process now so their house can be on the market during that coveted October timeframe. If you miss the October listing window, you risk being stuck on the market during the winter months, when both DC and its housing market are ice cold.

2) Record low mortgage rates are ending

Low mortgage rates help new buyers afford houses, pushing them into the market sooner and allowing them to buy bigger homes. According to Long and Foster, the mortgage on a $600K house would be $1500 less per month today than it was in 2000, thanks just to low interest rates.

Millennials, the largest generation in American history, have been slow to become homeowners due to economic recessions, stagnant wages, and heavy student loan debt. But thanks to low mortgage rates and improved savings during COVID, Millennials have recently been fl ooding into the market as fi rst-time buyers. The entry of these younger folks into the market has been like a shot of adrenaline for the housing market, helping to spur the recent market rise.

But all good things must come to an end, and according to Forbes, "the end of the housing boom will be when mortgage rates rise." These "rates are likely to rise when fi nancial markets anticipate more infl ation and action by the Federal Reserve to stem infl ation."

Thanks to multiple rounds of COVID-related economic stimulus, America is at risk of rising infl ation. The Labor Department recently announced that consumer prices jumped another 5% in July, the largest jump since 2008. Earlier this year, infl ation rates were at a higher level (4%) than mortgage rates (3%), an economic statistic that has not been seen since 1980.

The Federal Reserve combats infl ation by increasing interest rates. With the current Fed rate around zero percent and infl ation on the rise, there is nowhere for the Fed to go with interest rates except up. When the Fed raises interest rates, mortgage rates will increase along with it, homes will become less affordable, and the housing market will cool.

DC Realtor Angela Allison agrees: "It's smart to get on market while the rates are so low. The rates are going to go up, they have to go up, and we're going to start to see a turn in buyer demand. It's so crazy how this market turns on a dime - it can shift that much, that quick. Get on now, because we really don't know what's going to happen in the fall."

3) The supply of homes is rising

One well-known impact of an item being in low supply and high demand is that the price of that item rises. The price continues to rise until it reaches a point where even the most enthusiastic and motivated buyer says, "Yeah, I'm not paying that much." Or, as is often the case in home buying, mortgage underwriters say "Yeah, we're not cutting a check this big for that house."

According to data from the Federal Reserve Board, the housing market held just 3.5 months worth of inventory in October 2020, the lowest amount of inventory in history. During 2021, the amount of inventory has been steadily rising, and as of June, 6.3 months worth of inventory are on the market. This rising supply means more options for buyers, weakening the seller's market of the past year, and it counts as another sign that the market is starting to cool.

A looming foreclosure surge is also on the horizon. Right now, mortgage forbearances and bans on evictions and foreclosures have been keeping the supply of low-priced foreclosures off the market. These safety nets will be ending soon, and homeowners who have already walked away from their homes or who have suffered a long-term loss of income will be headed towards short sales and foreclosure auctions.

When the pent-up foreclosure supply is fi nally released, buyers will have even more options to choose from, and traditional sellers may have to start lowering prices to stay competitive.

Finally, after taking a pause due to COVID and skyrocketing lumber prices, the new home construction industry is expected to have a busy year. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) predicts that 1.1 million new homes will be built in 2021, a rate not seen since 2007. According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, "Most large builders have record or near record backlogs of new homes under contract and waiting to be built." These new homes will also add to the rising supply of houses.

With the supply of homes rising quickly, homeowners who delay putting their homes up for sale are at risk of having their listings get lost in the middle of a deluge of competing properties fl ooding the market. Instead, the seller's goal should be to enter the market before the anticipated spike in housing supply.

4) COVID is ending

Today's hot market was sparked by the COVID pandemic. Fears of the virus kept buyers and sellers in lockdown, and that pent-up demand fi nally exploded once COVID restrictions were relaxed. The COVID-related economic stimulus drove down mortgage rates, making homes more affordable.

In addition, the increase in working from home has caused homeowners to rethink how many rooms they need, where they want to live, and what kind of house they could buy with their budget. The media has labeled this phenomenon "The Great Re-Shuffl ing." Being able to work from home has caused an unprecedented exit from cities as buyers seek bigger homes at cheaper prices in the suburbs.

With DC vaccination rates approaching 70%, and President Joe Biden pushing federal employees to get vaccinated, the DC area should be able to weather the recent storm caused by the COVID Delta variant. Schools are expected to open up on 8/30, allowing many parents to return to the workforce, and unemployment is expected to continue to drop.

Given this positive economic outlook, certain Congressmen have said they do not expect any more federal stimulus.

All of this means that the pandemic is coming to an end, and life should start to look like the so-called "old normal" again. This also is likely to mean a return to the old normal in the housing market, with prices dropping over the winter back to the range of pre-COVID levels.

Any homeowners thinking about selling should jump into the market now, before COVID and its pumped-up housing prices come to an end.

5) The DC market is hot right now

The DC area is currently under an Excessive Heat Weather Warning as the heat index reaches a sticky 110 degrees, approaching an all-time record.

The DC real estate market is just as hot as the recent weather: • DC home prices have reached a median home price of $700K, which is an all-time record and up 12% from last year. • DC had 1,123 closed sales last month, which is a 10-year high and up 23% from the norm. • DC homes sat on the market for only 7 days also a 10-year record.

The above numbers show we are still in a strong "seller's market". All signs point to these record market highs continuing for another few months, but it is unlikely the market peak will survive the cold DC winter.

Winter is Coming

Homeowners on the fence about selling should make a decision quickly because the upcoming October peak buying season may be the last hurrah for this hot market. If you miss this autumn window, you may be waiting until spring to sell.

It's unclear what the market conditions will be like this coming spring. Mortgage rates will probably be up, the supply of houses will likely be high due to foreclosures and new construction coming into inventory, and COVID will hopefully be behind us.

All of these factors are likely to be a drag on the DC housing market, meaning spring sellers may not be able to profi t from the best prices the DC area has ever seen.

confirmed two had working smoke alarms. While three homes had alarms installed, investigators haven’t determined if they were functioning at the time of the fires. Three homes had no detectors at all.

A task force that includes representatives from FEMS, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigate every fatal fire in the city. Kannry says that electrical engineers from ATF are still evaluating the smoke alarms present during the May 24 fire that killed 8-year-old Supreme Arant to determine if they were working properly at the time.

Arant was staying with relatives when the fire broke out. Kannry says he was rescued but died in the hospital several days later. Three adults and two other children who were home at the time escaped.

“When we’re doing our outreach, we do think it makes more impact knowing that it was a child that died,” Kannry says. “All fire deaths are a tragedy, and we don’t want anyone to die in a fire but especially when it’s a child impacted, everybody feels it a little bit more.”

Inspectors installed 23 new smoke alarms while canvassing in Deanwood, around Upsal Street SE, where the fire that killed Arant occurred.

After George Washington University professor Paul Tschudi, 73, and his dog died in a house fire on April 7, the team canvassed in Brookland and installed nine smoke alarms in homes. Inspectors did not find any working smoke alarms in Tschudi’s home, according to FEMS data.

Kannry still believes the program is working, despite the recent spate of deaths in homes without alarms.

“I think that we’ve been able to install a lot of smoke detectors in homes that otherwise wouldn’t be able to have them,” Kannry says. “If just one of those smoke detectors is able to prevent a small fire from escalating or prevent a fire death, I think that the whole program was worthwhile.”

Although the free smoke alarm program targeted low-income and elderly homeowners early on, Kannry says any homeowner in the District can request an installation and a fire safety inspection.

Landlords are responsible for keeping up to code with working smoke detectors in rental units. While FEMS won’t install smoke alarms in rentals, he says inspectors will evaluate any rental apartment for free and ensure the landlord updates anything unsafe.

Since 2000, the District has averaged nearly 10 fire deaths each year. The city has seen a decade of below-average totals beginning in 2010, but fatalities have been trending upward again in the past three years. Kannry didn’t have an explanation for the uptick but says that 2021 is on track to see above-average numbers.

All of those who died in fires without smoke alarms in 2021 were above the age of 60.

People over 60 have accounted for half of all

Darrow Montgomery

Six months after the fire, the Butlers’ home remains boarded up.

fire deaths in the District since 2001. People over 70 have accounted for a third and 10 percent have been children under 12, according to FEMS data.

Kannry says children and older adults are most at risk of dying in a fire, often because of mobility issues. FEMS spokesperson Vito Maggiolo added that the elderly are at a higher risk of having defunct smoke alarms, too.

“In some of these fires, it’s not just a matter of smoke detectors not being present, but often they are present but nonfunctioning,” Maggiolo says. “For the elderly, the smoke detector may have been put on the wall 10 years ago and it’s no longer operative, or it may have gone off while cooking dinner and they took the battery out and they didn’t think to put it back.”

Rosa, 87, and Lester Wilson, 91, didn’t have any smoke alarms installed in their Petworth home, according to fire investigators. In the early hours of Jan. 21, a massive fire overtook their two-story rowhouse on 8th Street NW. Both were rushed to the hospital in critical condition but died later that morning.

“[Rosa] was a very beautiful spirit; she always helped people and encouraged people in the community,” says Shrikant Bhatnagar, who knew the Wilsons from the Salvation Army where they worshipped. “This kind of thing doesn’t come in our mind at all, especially smoke alarms, in the D.C. area because we assume everybody, especially in D.C., has one.”

Bhatnagar and his wife, Indrani, are corps officers for the Sherman Avenue NW location. He says the community was in shock when they heard about the fire. But he hasn’t heard a discussion about the lack of smoke detectors happening in the broader community.

When asked if the city should be doing more to reach residents like the Wilsons with their fire safety education, Indrani says she thinks it starts with the homeowner and the community.

“As a community, we need to take care of each other more, especially when we have so many of these situations already,” she says. “We need to talk to each other to find out that our home is safe, our smoke detector is working properly, even if we have one that is working.”

FEMS spokesperson Maggiolo also hopes that the community will step up.

“If you’re a friend or a neighbor or a relative of an elderly person … take the time to visit,” he says. “Take the time to see if they have smoke detectors. Take the time to test the smoke detectors, and if they’re needed, let us know and we’ll take care of it for you.” Louise Butler is surprised that anyone wouldn’t have smoke detectors.

“I just can’t imagine,” she says. “We are here today because the smoke detector saved our lives and it’s just unbelievable that people don’t take that as extremely important.”

The fire is a constant presence in the back of her mind, returning to her in little moments. She was jumpy for a while. She kept thinking she was constantly smelling smoke when there wasn’t any. A neighbor set up a GoFundMe to crowdfund the family’s recovery process. Once they were finally let back in to assess the damage, she saw how close it had been.

Smoke damage saturated the walls and window frames were charred reminders of what used to be.

“It was more terrifying when we went back in [the house] and just looked at how fast that fire had burned the entryway, the way we came out,” she says. “Had it not been for the smoke alarm, it would have been another way. ... We lost everything in the fire. There was nothing salvageable, that tells you how fast it spread.”

Louise knows that her perspective has changed since the fire. Now she sees smoke alarms more as necessary utilities such as water or electricity than regular household items.