Costs add up for Gatlinburg immigrant family two months after fires

PIGEON FORGE – Tired.

That’s how Allan Rivera feels after a long day – his day off from work – of running errands and trying to get his family medical care.

As he pulls his brother’s gray minivan into the driveway of their new A-frame home at the end of a very steep driveway, he opens the doors and the family spills out and shuffles into the house.

Dad collapses on the couch. It's been a long two months since the family of immigrants from Honduras was first displaced by the Sevier County wildfires that destroyed their rental cabin and hundreds of other homes.

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There’s still a lot to do - fix a broken electrical fuse, get the water running in the other cabin on the property, and find someone to rent it so the family themselves isn’t burdened with making the monthly payment of $1,500 rent on their own.

There are bills to think about, including the added expense of gas now that the family lives outside of Gatlinburg, but Rivera continues to work in the city and his oldest son, Simon, continues to go to school there.

As a busboy in a Gatlinburg restaurant, Rivera makes $9.50 an hour, plus tips – bringing home about $350 per week in a 40-hour week. Lately though, the restaurant where Rivera works has cut back on his hours due to the sluggishness of the winter economy in a tourist town largely driven by outdoor activities.

His girlfriend, Lelin Romero, speaks barely any English and doesn’t drive. She recently gave birth to their five-month-old son, their third child, but lately has been looking for work.

Their rent of $1,500 per month is more than double what they paid for a cabin rental in Gatlinburg prior to the fires. They have no savings.

“We needed a place to stay,” Rivera says. “People say we’re lucky we found a good place, but I explain to them, ‘Can you afford $1,500?’”

Like hundreds of other displaced Gatlinburg fire victims, the Riveras struggled in the aftermath of the fires to find a new place to live, bouncing between shelters and motel rooms before eventually settling on a property with two cabins that they found on Craigslist this month.

Consuelo Aleman, the pastor of the Iglesia Christiana La Luz de Jesus, a Pigeon Forge church largely serving the Hispanic population, said many of the Hispanic immigrants displaced by the fires have found new apartments or are staying with friends and relatives, although many of them have also been affected by high housing costs and a lack of housing in Gatlinburg, where many immigrants work in the restaurant and tourism sectors.

The church was serving between 50 and 60 families in the immediate aftermath of the fires, including Rivera and his family. While their needs have diminished, almost all of those families continue to come to the church for some kind of support, Aleman said.

“They are requesting furniture, things like that, but they are doing better, a lot better,” she said.

Some immigrant families affected by the fires are living multiple families to a house and many, like the Riveras, have seen their incomes drop in the winter months, said Susana Lopez, associate pastor at the Sevierville First Methodist Church and lead pastor of Hispanic Ministry.

"I think that most of them are OK and they’ll be okay, but it will be a long process before they get back to the way things were before," Lopez said.

Even with a new place to live, worries about the future continue to weigh on Rivera.

The rent is more than they can afford, and while they received assistance from the Dollywood Foundation, American Red Cross and local churches to help pay a security deposit and the first month’s payment, that money won’t last forever. The Dollywood Foundation has pledged $1,000 per month for six months to families that lost their primary residences, but those payments will stop after May.

Rivera said they may start looking for another place before then, but for now he isn't sure. "Some people want the perfect home after a disaster, but no, we have to be good with whatever place is available," he said. "I'm a Christian, and I trust in my Lord that he will open some ways to help us."

While his wife is out looking for work one afternoon, Rivera cradles his infant son, Ethan, and paces back and forth in their new living room.

Right now they are spending all the money they are making. Some things, like a new flat-screen television, may seem like luxuries at a time when the money could be saved or spent on the heat bill or a new car, rather than the one they are currently borrowing, but Rivera said it's important to him to provide some quality of life for his children.

"We just live (day to day)," he said. "I don't worry too much. I do it for them. I want the best for my son, for my children."

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