Lisa Rodriguez's hands trembled as she tore off another piece of heavy-duty packing tape.

She, her husband Luis Rodriguez Jr., and seven other tenants, were scrambling Friday morning to pack up whatever they could carry before their apartment building was to be boarded up by town of Wawarsing officials.

"How can we do it all in one day," Lisa said, "and still find a place to go on such short notice without leaving sentimental things behind?"

"We understand we need to go," Luis said. "We just need some time, look at all this stuff. We can't leave it behind, we're going to take a stand and ask for more time if they come [to board up the building] today."

Tenants of the building at Route 209 and Clay Hill Road in Wawarsing came home on July 12 to find a notice stating "occupancy has been prohibited by the code enforcement official."

"We're not looking forward to putting anyone out on the street," said Wawarsing Building Inspector Dan Pollan Friday afternoon in an interview at Town Hall.

Pollan said after an inspection on June 11, he had no choice but to deem the building unsafe for human occupancy, because the roof and ceilings are about to collapse.

"These people are going to be losing their homes," Pollan said, "because of the conditions they are literally forced to live in, because the owner of their property has not done any maintenance to that building."

Town officials said that owner — Joe Fennimore of Highland — did not respond to their calls, nor to a detailed report of his code violations until this week.

Reached by phone on Friday, Fennimore told Spectrum News he had not been to the property in more than a year, and was shocked to hear the building was being shut down.

"My hands are kind of tied at this point," Fennimore said. "I can't fix it and I can't correct what's going on, and the tenants are screwed. I feel horrible."

Luis said he had trouble reaching Fennimore to tell him about the violations, which did not surprise him.

"I've lived here since 2010," Luis said. "I think I've seen him twice."

Luis said he had called the Governor's Office of Housing, the Red Cross, and several other organizations seeking assistance with emergency housing and storage — only ending each call more discouraged.

Some relief came, though.

By midday, the governor's office, Senator Jen Metzger's office and local housing activists were paying close attention to see what town officials were going to do to keep the tenants from being homeless.

Town officials eventually decided to let the tenants stay in their homes through the weekend, and made several calls to help arrange emergency housing and storage through the Ulster County Department of Social Services.

This was good news to Lisa's brother, Nicholas Rodriguez, who is also a tenant at the dilapidated building.

Nicholas and his girlfriend had their car's trunk and backseat completely full with their belongings, and said they recently got permission from a park ranger to park their car in the Onteora Lake parking lot to live in for the time being.

When asked how long the two were planning to live in their car if they did not receive any emergency assistance, Nicholas replied, "long if we need to, probably months."

Luis said a DSS representative told him over the phone that the agency may try to recover some of the costs of the emergency housing and storage from Fennimore.