For the first time in 25 years, Yolanda Richardson can't go home to her Wallace Avenue apartment.

"I don't know what to really say. You know, I don't it's not funny. I'm not laughing cause if I don't smile, I would just want to cry. I never would imagine that I would be lose everything, you know?" said Richardson, a tenant at 2910 Wallace Ave.

The Department of Buildings issued a full vacate order for the apartment building after a five-alarm fire ripped through the top floor and roof of the building early Friday morning.

A total of 262 residents were displaced and are now left homeless, including Johnson.

"When we left it was still dark and everything was a blaze, I came back and I just broke down," said Johnson.

Johnson says she fell asleep on her couch Thursday night to be woken up by flames bursting through her neighbor's light fixture just before 2 a.m. Her apartment on the sixth floor - damaged by fire, smoke and water - is now a total loss.

"All my photos, all the photos of the kids when I was little, when they were little. those were cherished memories," said Richardson.

The pain has been felt throughout the neighborhood as people who used to live in the building came to see their memories charred.

"My heart is broken, our kids did the mini-Olympics, we did parties, Christmas parties, we did so many things with the police department and fire department and now they are here to serve us to see our building is condemned," said Irene Estrada, a former tenant who used to serve as the building's Tenant Association president.

The American Red Cross is assisting displaced tenants at P.S. 76 on Adee Avenue. They will reopen at 10 a.m. Saturday to provide emergency assistance.

A GoFundMe has been created to help those impacted.