OAKLAND — In a rare public appearance, the wife of the Ghost Ship warehouse’s master tenant spoke out about the deadly fire last month, apologizing for “what happened” and lamenting what she described as “pretty terrible” treatment by the media and former neighbors.
Micah Allison lived with her husband, Derick Almena, and their three children at the warehouse-turned-art collective in Oakland’s Fruitvale district, where 36 people were killed Dec. 2. She turned up at a special meeting of the City Council on Monday, where legislators were considering several proposals aimed at shoring up tenant protections and providing an emergency moratorium on evictions from unpermitted live/work spaces that spiked in the wake of the deadly blaze.
“The main thing I wanted to say is how sorry I am for what happened on Dec. 2,” Allison said, before thanking the activists and organizers at the meeting. “I wish that more had been done before because we carry a really heavy weight on our shoulders right now.”
But Allison spent the majority of her time at the podium decrying the treatment she said her family has received from the media and former neighbors, who she claimed thwarted a recent attempt to move back into an Oakland house where they had lived previously.
“It’s been pretty terrible what they’ve done to my family,” Allison said, speaking about media reports.
Micah Allison, wife of Satya Yuga (#GhostShip) collective leader, addresses #Oakland council re tenant protections (partial clip): pic.twitter.com/TSHwz5whh3
— Erin Baldassari (@e_baldi) January 24, 2017
She continued, describing a former landlord who offered to let them stay in exchange for replacing windows and painting the older home.
“The neighbors, who were my friends during the entire time I lived in that house before, got wind that we were going to move back into the house because our landlord really loved us and wanted to help our family,” she said. “In a couple hours, or over a 24-hour period, they contacted the landlord and said that if they let us move back into the house that they would cause a lot of trouble for him over his house.”
The deal would have allowed the family some stability to enable them to “start changing this narrative that’s gone out about Satya Yuga, the Ghost Ship, my family, my husband, myself,” she said, referring to the art collective occupying the warehouse.
Allison expressed frustration about trying to find a stable place to live while keeping her three children in their Fruitvale-area schools.
“In order to keep my kids in school, I need a house,” she said.
She declined to comment further about her family’s situation.
Both Allison and Almena are facing civil suits filed last month by the families of 20-year-old San Francisco State student Michela Gregory and 23-year-old UC Berkeley graduate Griffin Madden, who both died in the fire.
On Monday, the family’s defense team released a report alleging the deadly fire started not in the Ghost Ship warehouse, but an adjacent building.
The 10-page report fingered PG&E as responsible for inadequate electrical inputs into the building and argued the findings should relieve Almena and Allison of any criminal liability. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has been investigating Almena, who was the master tenant at the Fruitvale warehouse, and others for possible criminal charges.
