Lashonda SmithMilwaukeeWI

I am a 38yr old single mom of 3 boys, aged 19, 18, and 15. I will try to make this brief as possible. First of all, I always have struggled with rent and food for us; I always have kept a job or two. I never can afford the rent, which has always landed me and my boys in poor violent areas in Milwaukee, 53206. I keep my boys mostly in after school programs like the YMCA or Boys & Girls Club, but I always had to get into relationships with men to help keep the bills paid to stay stable.  (more…)

Celeste ScottPittsburghPA

I am a 40 year old single mother who has been serially evicted. Mostly money judgements and being cost burdened causing it. I now work on housing policy and would love to have less studies and more people on the ground helping black single mothers to have safe decent stable homes .

Candi BlalackLewisvilleTX

This is a copy of the letter I sent to local media and social media yesterday:

As I sit here reflecting on the last ten years, I beg for help and guidance for my 34 year old brother. May is mental health awareness month. It seems that mental health is not always talked about and it is perceived as shameful. I am one that is not ashamed. I am not ashamed that I have a brother who suffers from schizoaffective disorder. What I am ashamed of is the lack of care and opportunities available to keep him safe, as well as those around him.  (more…)

AshleeOhio

Ashlee is my name and growing up, I had a good life even though I was born with a birth defect known as Gastroschisis. That is a defect where the insides of my intestinal tract and bowels were on the outside of my body. I had multiple surgeries to correct the problem. As a young child, I was also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It seemed as if I always struggled just to fit in. As I matured, the behavioral problems only seemed to magnify my physical problems and I carried all of into adulthood. I found myself in a relationship that, after 14 years, was no good for me. I was evicted out of that relationship and home that we shared due to him cheating on me. From that point on, my life spiraled out of control. I became addicted to drugs and could not find a way of escape. I was able to hold down jobs from here and there but not for long. I was evicted from one home after another due to my inability to keep a job and pay rent. (more…)

NikkiGeorgia

I am Nikki, a 38 year old female from Greensboro, GA. I am divorced, single mother to a very beautiful, very intelligent 15 year old daughter and a Corrections Officer and 911 Dispatcher. In 2005, I was standing alone in a parking lot and was hit by a passer-by in a truck which knocked me 9 feet into the air and I then landed on my head. Not only did I have 32 staples in my head, but I was forced to learn to walk again. In my search for wellness, I was prescribed nerve pills, pain pill, and sleeping pills just to make it through a day that would seem normal to someone else.  (more…)

Jim NorrenaOaklandCalifornia

Living the Artist’s Life: How Oakland Failed Me 

In 1993 I was 23 years old, working as an editorial assistant earning $13 an hour for a book publisher in Berkeley. I was inspired by the Bay Area’s thriving publishing scene, motivated by the arts community, and eager to build a comfortable life near my family. My apartment, a ground-floor in-law in a duplex, was admittedly was a steal at $550 a month.  This had the added benefit of affording me rent control protection because in Oakland properties with three units or fewer in which the owner does not reside are protected.   (more…)

David ChinStocktonCA

I have been evicted twice, almost a third time. I split from my fiancee and found a place so I could stay and my daughter could be at. It was an apartment made on the side of a garage. One bedroom ( I used for storage as I could not afford one). We slept in the main room together. The electric kept cutting out and we could not use an AC window unit because it would blow out the fuses. The shower would back up and the toilet would not flush. I made issue of this and even had the county inspect. They cited him but he did just the minimum and found that he could get grandfathered in for the rest. So he could evict me for causing him problems. (Later he could not rent it anyway as the unit was not sealed from fumes from the garage side.)  (more…)

Julie KeenePoplarvilleMS

Evicted means to expel from a property, but sometimes that property is in our own minds and we expel ourselves. I was an addict, living from pillar to post. I once had it all, a nice home, a wonderful marriage, and two beautiful children. Addiction robbed me of everything I held dear.

From the moment when I found myself in a prison of my own making and saw no way out, there was no one to really help because I was stuck in such a cycle of despair that I could not see the way out that was right in front of my face. (more…)

Luz FabioSeattleWA

Two years ago, I was living with my husband Carlos and our son in an apartment complex. We didn’t owe any money for rent, we always paid on time, I was working as a cleaning lady and our son was going to school. One day I saw my neighbor coming out of the apartment manager’s office crying and I asked her what was wrong. She said they were going to evict her or charge her $250 in late fees because she hadn’t paid her rent yet and she had no way to go get her check from work.  (more…)

Cassie BohannonSeattleWA

I returned home after running errands one day and my son gave me an Eviction Notice that had been given to him by the property manager. I didn’t even know that a property manager can evict you without giving a reason. I immediately emailed the property management and told her that we would be out of the apartment by the 29th and the eviction would not be necessary. She agreed that if I was out by the 29th that she would not file the eviction in court.

3 days after agreeing she wouldn’t file it, she started sending vindictive and threatening emails repeatedly saying, “You better be looking for an apartment because I will file the Unlawful Detainer — You need to be OUT right away.”  (more…)

Denise KillianSeattleWA

I moved into an apartment in December of 2012. It was in an area known for violence and drug trafficking, but I wasn’t able to afford something in a safer neighborhood. I got a job repairing and cleaning up the apartment complex, and was heavily involved with property management, including block watch.  Unfortunately, drug trafficking and vandalism worsened on the property. This worried me as I am a disabled individual with P.T.S.D. and have been the victim of assault and domestic violence.  (more…)

Hollie NebelskiPainesvilleOH

It was 2010. I was twenty with a two-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son. I was working full time, while my fiancé was in and out of work. Every month we struggled to make the bills. One night around 9 p.m., the landlord stopped by, and I paid him half the rent. We agreed that I would pay the rest by the end of the month.

But a few days later, I arrived home to find an eviction notice taped to my door. (more…)

Beatrice M. HoggSacramentoCA

I have been a renter since 1984 and I have worked pretty steadily since 1980. I left my stressful job in Sacramento with the State of California in August 2008, thinking that I would have no trouble getting another job. A few months later, the economic downturn hit. Government hiring was frozen and no one would hire me because it was assumed that I wouldn’t be happy with a lower paying job. After working some part time jobs and receiving Unemployment Insurance extension benefits, I was evicted from my apartment of ten years, a week before Christmas in 2011. (more…)