Families: Fire victims paid to live in building

Family members of the two people injured Sunday when a downtown building burned said the victims were living there with the knowledge and permission of the owner.

Joseph Hodges and Michelle Williams were pulled unconscious from the fire and transported to the burn unit at Grady Memorial Hospital, where they remain in critical condition.


Officials have termed the two as “homeless,” and the owner of the building, Oliver Waters, said the night of the fire that no one should have been in the building.

“Her family and his family knew they were staying there,” said Mitzi Stephens, who said she is Joseph Hodges’ ex-sister-in-law. “He was paying $6 a day for them to stay there.”

Bobbie Calloway, Williamson’s mother, confirmed Stephens’ comments.

“That man (Waters) gave them a key … They had been living there just about a year.”

Calloway said the couple paid Waters $6 a day to stay in the building.

Hodges’ brother William Hodges also said the couple lived at the 1860 North Broad street building.

“They would kind of do his work for him in exchange (for staying there)” he said. “He would do a little manual labor, putting together furniture and sanding and spraying the finish, for a small amount of cash. I have taken my brother across the street to pick up a $20 check for working four days.”

William Hodges attributed the low rate of pay to the fact that Waters let his brother and Williamson live in the building.

The building has a bathroom with a toilet and a sink, but no bathing facilities and no cooking facilities, William Hodges said. The two ate at Little Italy, Subway and Hardee’s most of the time.

“I’ve picked them up and dropped them off 20-plus times from that building,” he said. “They’d go around to the back door and use their key to get in.”

William Hodges said his brother and Williamson had lived in the building about nine months.

According to Stephens, doctors continue to drain Joseph Hodges’ lungs. Calloway said her daughter remains on a ventilator in a medically induced coma.

“She’s going to have to have some skin grafts on her fingers, but at least she’s alive,” Calloway said.

The building is owned by Waters, who had used it up until about two weeks ago to manufacture furniture. Waters, who was at the scene Sunday night, said no one should have been in the building at the time. He said he had no idea who the victims might be.

Waters did not immediately return a call Tuesday afternoon in regard to statements that the victims were living in the building with his consent.

Fire marshal Brian Smith said Tuesday that Waters told him that while the couple had lived in the building some time earlier, they had not stayed there in several weeks and were not supposed to be there.

“He said he had let them sleep there for a while but in the last three or four week’s they’d had a falling out and weren’t to be staying there,” Smith said.

Whitfield said the fire started under a table on the floor, which was covered in sawdust.

“We know where it started, but we don’t know how,” he said, adding that the fire marshal was expected to return to the scene Tuesday afternoon.

He also said there was evidence that someone had been sleeping in the building.

“We don’t know for how long a period of time, but there were sleeping bags and stuff around,” Whitfield said.