A day after a fire at an Endwell hotel killed six people, witnesses who escaped the fire said they didn’t hear any smoke detectors and are now calling on the county for a rent freeze and an eviction moratorium.
Ashley Backus and her family were staying at the Knights Inn when the fire broke out early Monday morning.
“It was scary. I didn’t see the fire until after going down the stairs and going to the front of the building, then I turned around and the roof to our bedroom caved in. It was very traumatic; it was very hot. I can still feel the heat on my skin,” Backus said.
Their room was right above where the fire was set by 24-year-old Tyler Russell, according to New York State Police, who have yet to release the identities of the victims, or why and how the fire started. Russell is charged with six counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of fourth-degree arson.
Backus, her wife and their child were experiencing homelessness and temporarily placed at the Knights Inn by Broome County’s Department of Social Services.
“You did not hear one fire alarm throughout the whole fire, except for the one main one outside that somebody actually had pulled,” she said.
Another resident of the hotel, who only shared her first name, said she didn’t hear any smoke alarms.
“I was upstairs above it. My smoke alarm should have gone off, and it didn’t. No smoke alarms went off,” Michelle said. “All you could see was red flames out the window, the door, roaring over my balcony.”
A group of people who once lived at the Knights Inn, activists and other community members gathered Tuesday in front of the county office building in downtown Binghamton to call for change in how the county deals with homelessness. Masai and Sana Andrews, who do outreach work with the families in the hotels, organized the protest.
“What happened yesterday for a lot of people out here, and for a lot of people in this community, was our worst nightmare. This was the worst thing that we could imagine happening at these motel shelters specifically,” Masai Andrews said. “The folks who live there have been talking about the safety issues there for years, for some folks over six years, and so not only was this a tragedy, it was also a predictable and avoidable tragedy.”
Family homelessness around New York has skyrocketed since 2022 after the COVID-era eviction moratorium was lifted. Andrews said the county should implement a rent freeze and declare an eviction moratorium specifically so families aren’t being removed from their homes.
Signs that advocates brought to the rally in downtown Binghamton. Broome County officials declined requests for comment. (Spectrum News 1/Emily Kenny)
Broome County officials have declined multiple interview requests about the fire and the Department of Social Services’ role in placing families in the hotel. Last month, County Executive Jason Garner said he was aware of safety issues — including at the Knights Inn specifically — in hotels and planned to discontinue their use as temporary shelters.
“Hotels and motels were never designed to solve homelessness. They isolate people, they lack support systems and too often, they leave people stuck in the same cycle they were trying to escape,” Garner said during the May press conference.
Despite the announcement from the county to work toward ending the use of motels as temporary shelter, Andrews said county leaders need to do more.
“We believe there should be a public health crisis [declared]. If they declare a public health emergency, then that’ll release additional funds so that we can hopefully house these families,” Andrews said. “There are solutions to this problem that’s not putting another Band-Aid on it. It’s not putting more children in hotel rooms.”