The timetable to remove the crane that fell on the Elan City Lights Apartments in Dallas last Sunday remains uncertain, with work, according to its owner, likely at least a week away.
Meanwhile, displaced residents checked out of hotels Friday on the final day their comped stays paid for by Greystar, which manages the apartment.
"I have heard so many horror stories about people having to couch surf, with their credit situation, their money situation, they don't know where they are going to go," resident Clay Muirhead said.
Muirhead said he considers himself lucky, despite having his car and most of his belongings stuck inside the closed-off apartments.
Unlike dozens of others, he was able to quickly find a new apartment, something apartment locators said is actually easier for tenants of the Elan City Lights Apartments than they might imagine.
"There are a bunch of properties in the area who are offering one to two months free rent, waving their move-in fees," apartment locator Matt Goodman, who works for TheAptsofDallas.com, said.
Goodman, and fellow locator Chantz Martin, estimate there may be close to 100 apartment properties in Dallas that are interested in assisting Elan City Lights Apartments residents.
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Apartment locators are a free service to renters and both Goodman and Martin said they plan to donate a portion of their commissions, paid by the properties, back to the tenants of the Elan City Lights Apartments.
"It really just boiled down to helping people, that's what our company was founded on anyway," Martin said.
A moving company has been hired to move personal belongings from the damaged building to an offsite location where they will be able to be collected in the coming days.
On Friday, workers set up barriers around the entrance of the Elan City Lights Apartments after at least one resident broke in overnight to retrieve their belongings.
