‘It’s been a long haul’: COVID-19 hotel guest struggles with housing

Linda McDowell had goosebumps after touring a downtown house simply blocks from San Diego Bay. It was spacious sufficient for her 6-year-old pitbull named Stella, and with a park down the road, it appeared excellent. She virtually couldn’t consider it might be the primary place to name her personal since earlier than the pandemic.

On the way in which to the financial institution for cash to carry the house, Linda sang aloud, “I’m gettin’ an house,” incorporating her personal twist on the Sam Cooke basic, “We’re havin’ a celebration. Dancin’ to the music.”

For greater than a 12 months, Linda and Stella have been dwelling at a San Diego County-run lodge in Outdated City, which has been used to briefly home individuals with pre-existing well being circumstances throughout the coronavirus pandemic. She is one in every of dozens of others who nonetheless stay on the lodge because the troubled program is liable to ending a month before anticipated. 

The remaining company have just a few weeks to discover a new place to reside, or they are going to be despatched to a homeless shelter. A county spokesperson mentioned officers are doing every part they’ll to assist, and pointed to the variety of housing subsidies which were supplied.

Linda is one in every of 30 company who acquired a Part 8 voucher, a type of authorities help that helps low-income residents pay for housing, and it gave her peace of thoughts understanding she’ll have monetary help to cowl the $2,445 month-to-month hire. Even so, she has come to learn the way troublesome it may well nonetheless be to discover a dwelling in San Diego.

“It’s been a protracted haul,” she mentioned.

The lodge shelter program has been winding down for the reason that starting of the 12 months, and county employees and contractors are alleged to be working with company to assist them discover housing. However for the previous a number of weeks, Linda mentioned she hasn’t been getting the assistance she wants, so she determined to begin touring and making use of for items on her personal. 

One sunny afternoon final week, Linda drove south in her Kia Soul on the I-5 freeway to tour an house close to San Diego’s Seaport Village. After dwelling and elevating a household for 23 years in Level Loma Heights, she was hesitant to maneuver into the extra city space. 

However that modified as Linda turned onto the house constructing’s avenue. 

“It’s gonna be so good, it’s so near the water!” Linda mentioned, wanting in each course, making an attempt to take all of it in without delay. “I may simply stroll exterior and be on the water. Take a look at this! Ahhh!” 

Linda hoped to hire a one-bedroom unit with a big closet and loads of space for storing. When administration gave her a tour of a mannequin studio on the primary ground, she was excited to see even the studio was spacious. Her face was stuffed with a mix of pleasure and disbelief as she regarded round. 

Within the resident companies workplace, employees handed Linda an utility for a 585-square-foot, one-bedroom unit on the nook of the second ground, with a courtyard view. They mentioned they might maintain it for her if she returned after 2:15 p.m. with the finished utility and a deposit.

First, she wanted money. So she jumped into her automotive and drove to a close-by 7-Eleven to make use of an ATM. Then, sitting within the driver’s seat exterior of the shop, she began to fill out the applying. 

“Oh lord, my nerves,” Linda mentioned with a deep sigh. 

Studying aloud from the applying, “Residential historical past,” she mentioned, contemplating what to put in writing. 

“I hate functions. Residential …” she trailed off, then wrote the title of the lodge she’s been dwelling at for greater than a 12 months.

Rising nervous by the second, she continued. However the sort and variety of questions on the applying acted like obstacles: Employer’s title? Have you ever ever been evicted? 

Linda lives on social safety and incapacity funds, and delivers meals for DoorDash on the facet. She first skilled homelessness after being evicted from her dwelling in Level Loma Heights in February 2020. She had been dwelling and paying hire together with her brother, however after his demise in 2018, the funds began to pile up.

After the eviction, Linda lived in her automotive in a secure parking zone run by a nonprofit, Jewish Household Service, earlier than qualifying for a room within the county lodge program as a consequence of her medical situation. She has a superb credit score rating, she mentioned, and solely owes cash on her automotive. Even so, she apprehensive the eviction could be an issue and hoped it wouldn’t come up within the credit score test. 

Linda mentioned she had already mentioned these issues with the individuals supposed to assist her discover housing — workers with Equus Workforce Options, the contractor that has confronted scrutiny for its mishandling of this system — and so they led her to consider that her Part 8 voucher could be the important thing to get her inside an house. 

After Linda completed the applying, the following step was discovering a financial institution for a cash order. Feeling uplifted now, Linda broke into her rendition of Cooke’s “Having a celebration.”

“You recognize what track I’m singing, proper?” she requested, earlier than leaping again into tune, “We’re havin’ a celebration. All people’s dancin’. I’m gettin’ an house.” 

Together with her rental utility, Linda wanted $200 for the deposit and $45 for a credit score test. She tried to get cash orders from two totally different banks, however no luck. She then went to a payday mortgage retailer within the Gaslamp Quarter. It was already approaching 2:15 p.m., the time Linda hoped to be again on the constructing by. She needed her utility processed as quickly as attainable. 

On the drive again to the leasing workplace, she began worrying about prices. After paying to carry the unit, a credit score test, storage prices and different shifting bills, would she have sufficient if the utility firm requested for a deposit, too? If she may transfer in rapidly she may be capable to save on storage, she mentioned.

“That will be actually nice.” 

She arrived an hour later than she needed to, however the entrance desk nonetheless accepted her utility and cash orders, and she or he determined to take the elevator as much as see the rooftop pool. 

“Take a look at that boat! Take a look at that water! You’ve bought a view!” she mentioned, wanting over the sting. “Down that avenue, there’s a park for Stella.”

She took a deep breath and mentioned, “I’m gonna cry. Not but. I’m gonna cry when he provides me the information.” 

The information got here simply as Linda returned to her automotive. Her cellular phone rang and it was the leasing agent. He had referred to as whereas working a rental historical past test. It’s not the identical as a credit score test, he defined. Linda’s face sunk.

“The eviction got here up,” she mentioned, referring to the Level Loma Heights house she had for 23 years. She nonetheless has $36,000 in rental debt with the proprietor.

“Now I’m actually gonna cry.” 

The one means she may get into that house, the agent mentioned, was if she introduced that debt all the way down to zero.

“What am I gonna do? A zero steadiness. That’s gonna be a miracle,” she mentioned virtually in shock, repeating one phrase again and again: “Wow.” 

“Who’s gonna hire (to me)?” she requested herself. “Which means wherever and in all places I am going to (apply).” 

Deflated, Linda referred to as her contact on the San Diego Housing Commision on her means again to her lodge in Outdated City and left a message, asking if there was something that might be executed to assist. 

She arrived again on the lodge, walked over to a 15-foot journey trailer parked on the road and mentioned, “You see this little gem? It’s mine.” 

The within has been intricately painted and adorned, with a small chandelier hanging over a twin mattress. One thing to fall again on.

“It’s a superb factor I’ve this,” she mentioned, preventing again tears. “I simply don’t know what to do.”

County officers nonetheless haven’t instructed company after they have to be out of the lodge, however time is working out. She mentioned she may pay $450 a month to park the trailer at a campground, however that’s provided that they settle for her. After which she questioned about her stuff in storage and whether or not her small hatchback would be capable to haul the trailer round city.

“My coronary heart hurts.”