AUSTINTOWN TWP., Ohio - Property managers of Phoenix House in Austintown are making repairs to try and get residents back in. In a meeting with county organizations Monday, representatives with the property said 65 units were undamaged in the blast and could possibly be liveable while the rest of the building is fixed.

“We gotta get the sprinkler systems back on we gotta get the gas back on, the  gas is the big issue, I mean we don't know what happened at this point,” a representative with the property said. 

The property representative said the elevators need to be fixed and the county would need to deem the building structurally sound for those units to be used. 

More than 130 senior residents have been living in hotels, nursing homes or with family since the explosion on Nov. 22.

“They don't have kitchens, they don’t have their typical amenities so we need to get them into a house where they have everything that they need,” Roxann Sebest, the Vice President of the United Way Youngstown Mahoning Valley said. 

The United Way is searching for more comfortable housing options in the meantime. 

Because many were getting rent assistance in the low income housing, finding places that qualify for the same assistance is proving difficult across Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

“The housing stock is not very abundant were very limited and we have over 130, 140 people that need homes,” Sebest said. “None of them will be displaced. We are trying our best to raise money to keep them where they are at and to help them with what they need but the urgency is to find them housing so they can be somewhat stable until the building decides what the future is for it.”

Resource groups in the meeting said if they find a place that qualifies the residents could get up to 12 months of funding assistance for rent.