Mom struggles to find place to live after Dallas apartment fire

DALLAS - An early morning apartment fire Monday in Dallas left nearly two dozen people without a place to go.

The Park NinetySix90 complex says it is trying to help, but one single mother was offered an apartment she can't afford.

Recalling the ordeal is tough for Ashley Hill.

"3:30 in the morning you don't expect anybody to be banging on your door telling you your house is on fire, to get out. I'm waking up my kids. My daughter is 12, my son is 10,” Hill said.

Hill and her family lost everything in the fire that broke out, she says, in the unit next door.

"It died but it reignited. When it reignited it came back with a vengeance,” hill said.

The apartment complex offered to relocate her to another unit. She rejoiced, but for only a few seconds.

"I didn't know they were going to put me in another unit and tell me your rent is going to go up $105 every month,” Hill said.

The management says the more expensive unit is all that’s available. Hill believes, given the fire was no fault of her own, it's unfair.

"I'm not saying everyone has to get the same deal, but everybody else I saw in this building has a two parent income. I am a single mother with two kids, one in junior high one in elementary school and I barely make enough to pay all the bills I have here.”

Eight families were displaced. Hill so far seems to be the only one facing a tough predicament.

"I'm normally fine when I start talking about it. But when I talk about how they are not going to put me in a unit because I don’t have an extra $105, now I have to think about where I'm going to put my kids,” Hill said. “It makes me emotional. I don't know what else to do, I'm trying to be a good mother.”