Johnny Aquino lost his childhood home where he lived with his parents and two siblings. It was ravaged by an 8-alarm fire last Tuesday that displaced more than 130 families.

The Aquinos are living in a hotel, but have been traveling back to their neighborhood for provisions and food from volunteers.

“We don't have food. They don't give us breakfast. There’s no laundromat over there to launder our clothes," he says.

What You Need To Know

  • An 8-alarm fire last week displayed more than 130 families from an apartment building in Jackson Heights, Queens

  • Residents staying at hotels were preparing to find new housing on Tuesday, but the city extended hotel stays until April 20

  • Residents believe they could be out of their homes for at least a year, and are seeking long-term housing options in Queens

Families, staying in hotels near JFK Airport and in Bayside, were originally told they would have to find new housing beginning April 13. But they got a reprieve and can now stay for another week, until April 20.

Aquino attended a rally on Monday, joining local officials and other displaced families who demanded the families be allowed to stay at hotels, as close to their old building at 89-07 34th Ave. for as long as possible.

"What was going through my mind was, where we going to go? Where are we going to sleep?" he says of the April 13 move out that got pushed back. "Just wondering like how we’re gonna get to work for my parents, for my mom, cooking? Where we gonna end up, being in the streets without no help?”

While the extension buys Aquino’s family time to figure out their future, he, like his neighbors, is against staying in a shelter.

"We don't wanna go to a shelter. That’s what we’re fighting — not to go to a shelter," he says. "They wanna send us to the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, Manhattan. We want to stay here in the borough, especially for my brother who goes to school. We don't wanna go nowhere, we wanna stay here, where it’s home.”

And Avelia Farciert also wants to avoid a shelter, which would be further from home than the hotel near JFK Airport where she is staying.

“I don’t want to go to the shelter, I hear a lot of bad things about the shelter, even though they say to me you’re gonna be in your own space, it's too far because they told me I need to go to the Bronx," she says.

Residents here say they are expecting to be displaced for at least a year, making a long-term solution other than shelters a necessity.