When Alex Brown went down to his basement Sunday morning, he realized something was not quite right.

A few hours later, Brown - and the 20 other housemates of Alpha Tau Omega - were homeless.

The support beam of the main floor, at 251 W. Grand River Ave., had twisted, breaking through its drywall covering and pushing out a wall in the basement.

"It started to lay over on its side," said Howard Asch, director of code enforcement and neighborhood conservation in East Lansing. "It's sort of like taking a piece of licorice and twisting it in the middle."

The building was last inspected in April and found to be in compliance, Asch said. Brown, the president of the fraternity, said the damage to the building, which is about 15 years old, came as a surprise.

"It was kind of shocking," Brown said. "This was probably the last thing we ever expected to happen."

The East Lansing Fire Department evacuated the house and said it needed to stay vacant on Sunday. Asch said an official decided to keep the house closed after an investigation on Tuesday.

"An engineer did evaluate the beam and agreed that the building needed to stay vacated until the problem was taken care of because it could be in danger of collapse," Asch said.

The American Red Cross provided rooms at the Kellogg Center for the fraternity members, but tonight they have to find housing for themselves, Brown said.

"We're not sure at the moment of our living situation," Brown said. "We're working with groups to find out what we're going to do and where we're all going."

Asch said officials are unsure of what caused the damage, but Brown blamed water damage.

"Two winters ago, we had a pipe burst," Brown said. "Our basement flooded - we were knee-deep in water. We think it rotted something and pushed some things out of line."

The owner of the house, the women's fraternity Alpha Xi Delta, was notified of the situation on Monday, said Tina Lewellyn, director of housing for the organization headquartered in Indianapolis.

"We are still information gathering as far as what caused the situation and what the best remedy will be at this point," Lewellyn said.

The fraternity members have been allowed back into the house with firemen present to retrieve some belongings, Asch said.

"We thought it was safe enough for a single individual to go in if they were careful," Asch said.

Brown is making contacts with various organizations to find a place for his fraternity to stay, but said that Alpha Xi Delta is dealing with the insurance companies.

"It's basically out of the brothers' hands right now," Brown said. "Thank God no one got hurt and everybody's safe and sound now."