Beyond temporary: Red Cross helps victims of Layton apartment fire find permanent homes
Oct 14, 2025, 8:42 AM | Updated: 5:30 pm
The American Red Cross was there for victims of a Layton apartment fire on the day of the fire, Oct. 10, and every day since. (Layton Fire Department)
(Layton Fire Department)
LAYTON — Workers at the American Red Cross are making their way through a long list of people impacted during the fire at Layton Meadows Apartments on Friday.
The building in the complex that caught fire was determined to be a total loss, leaving 37 people without a place to live.
The American Red Cross has already begun working with people who lived in 15 of the 24 units that burned down.
The help comes after victims follow a process, which starts with verifying their residence.
“We work with the family to be able to do the verification process, to ensure that the people who say they lived there, live there,” said Michael Smauldon, the executive director of the American Red Cross of northern Utah.
“After they are verified, we work to get them immediate assistance,” he said.
Many ways the Red Cross can help
That type of quick assistance can be a cash gift from the American Red Cross to use for new clothes, food or even a hotel room.
Then the job of helping the fire victims find a home begins with a case worker.
“Our case workers call them three days after we initially start that case,” Smauldon said. “We … start working on a strategy that’s going to get them in more of a more permanent housing solution.”
And they’re not starting from scratch.
“We have a plethora of partners that we work with in the housing realm,” Smauldon said.
Their other partners can help with furniture and food. The Red Cross gets the process started by sending referrals to their partners on behalf of fire victims.
They can even help advocate for fire victims with insurance companies.
“If they don’t have insurance, we really work with the local entity, the city and county and state entities of housing to see what we could do to get them into some emergency housing, especially if they are lower income,” he said.
And the cost?
All of this, the cash, the advocacy work, the contacts, is done free of charge.
“It’s a gift on behalf of the American people and our sponsors,” Smauldon said. We just want to see them start that recovery process and start moving forward.”
Smauldon said as of Monday the Red Cross had provided immediate cash assistance to victims living in 15 of the 24 units. And he said they have been in contact with people living in the other nine units as well.
