By: Tom Duggan – 12-28-16
Yashua Duerte and Carlos Ortiz were lingering at the Methuen police station for hours on Monday waiting to hear from the Red Cross, or the City of Methuen, or anyone else, as to whether or not their hotel stay at the Day’s Inn would be extended another 24 hours after being left homeless by a 3 alarm fire just two days before Christmas.
“I worked the late shift,” Carlos told The Valley Patriot.
“I was out cold. I slept through the fire alarm. I would have slept through everything if someone hadn’t knocked on our door and woken us up. We got out with just what we were wearing. We have nothing … nothing.”
Carlos, who works full time at Lowell General Hospital, says that because he and his room mate Yashua are single men they found themselves at the bottom of the list when it came to getting aide from the various organizations helping out the people left homeless from the fire.
“They have to take care of the kids and people with families first, we understand that. But, they paid for our hotel room last night, then we have to come back and wait to find out if they are going to pay for tonight. Day by day we don’t know if we are going to have a roof. The hotel doesn’t care, they just want their money. In the mean time we both work the night shift,” Yashua told the Valley Patriot.
Yashua works full time at the Lawrence General Hospital.
He added that he and Carlos both received some donated items like clothing, but without knowing if they are going to have a roof over their heads from night to night, “what do we do with the few things they gave us? We can’t be walking around with it. It doesn’t fit in my car. We work hard, we are not on welfare, and we don’t need a lot to get back our feet long-term, but in the short-term we really have no idea what we are going to do.”
The two men have set up a GoFundMe page hoping people will donate.
Yashua and Carlos have only asked for a total of $4,000 in donations on the fund raising page.
To contact Carlos and Yashua you can email them at: duarteyashua@gmail.com