Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash
“I miss my bed! I miss sitting in my swiveling-arm chair and looking at the fountain in the pond next to my apartment. I miss going to the refrigerator and cooking in my own kitchen!” I heard myself saying aloud as I missed the exit to my weekend Airbnb. Tears streaming down my face to the point where I probably should have pulled over, I just dabbed at my face trying not to ruin my foundation. Too late. The ugly cry had already started.
I miss…stability.
I’d just left a work meeting where I described our efforts to push for more apartments and homes affordable for people with low-incomes. There I was, a community organizer, fighting for changes in the housing landscape…and now I’m also homeless.
Sick of telling and retelling my own story, thoughts flooded my mind: “Maybe I should write about this. Document the journey. Lots of comedians have homelessness as part of their journey…but I just make funny videos; I’m not a comedian for real.”
“I think you should tell your story. I think that’s it! That’s your next thing,” my cousin advised.
“Girl, I don’t know. I’ve read many stories about the housing crisis, but I’ve never heard about a homeless community organizer who is actually working on housing.”
I’m sure there are more of us. More homeless community organizers. We are people who believe that the world “as it is” should be radically and drastically different. With that in mind, we work with others from various walks of life, races, socioeconomic statuses, and living situations to wage long and grueling campaigns for social and economic change. We work long hours. We meet with hundreds of people a year. We get into arguments – with ourselves and with the people around us. Why? Because we know that better is just around the corner if we organize enough of us to move the decision-makers in our community to do what’s best for us. And we win!
My housing story started in 2015. I had been living in Columbus, Ohio for 3 years and had a really nice apartment that I shared with a roommate. It was affordable and near multiple options for healthcare, shopping, and entertainment. That was just normal back then. Many people could find affordable places to live, and at the same time, thousands of people were struggling to find such a thing.
Then things took a turn in my story: new property managers came in and gave us and our neighbors two options: 1) Move to a newly renovated apartment and immediately face a $250 rent increase or 2) Move out. Well, looks like we’re moving one way or another. And I hate…I abhor…I loathe moving. In this case though, I had no choice. My roommate and I quickly learned that other apartments in our area had already undergone rent hikes, so our best option was to move into a renovated unit. This was a 41% increase in the rent. In case you were wondering if our jobs had also given us 41% increases that year, I’ll be the first to say: THEY HAD NOT. No one was getting 41% increases except the property managers of apartment communities.
So, we reworked our budgets and ended up staying. Whew. At least we still lived in the same neighborhood. Well, each year after that, we faced slight increases. Only slight on our end because of a grandfather clause of sorts that allowed for it. Our neighbors though, were basically forced out of the community. It got to the point where as soon as I got to know my new neighbors, they were gone. They couldn’t keep up with the increases. I worked to try to organize a tenants organization in my community to put an end to this. We were unsuccessful.
Then, in 2021, my rent went above $1,000. In the meantime, I had neighbors paying more than $1,300 for the same type of unit. My grandfather clause ran out when yet again, we found ourselves under new management.
By that time, it was 2022 and my new roommate needed to move out-of-state to be closer to family. She would continue paying her portion of the rent until the end of the lease in June of 2023. I decided to buy a house. My previous route of aggressive investing and saving instead of home ownership was no longer a viable option. Home ownership was going to be a more attractive way to build long-time wealth at this point.
I started looking at houses in April 2023 after paying off some debt and feeling good about the search. Within a couple of weeks, I found a place that I loved. I placed an offer. It was accepted. Things were going well until we got to the home inspection. The house was a flip, and the flippers cut more corners than a carpenter who only builds tables. My inspector found $40,000 worth of work that I would have to do in the first year in order to not run into problems in year 2. Well, it was obvious that I needed to terminate that contract.
So, I continued my search. My realtor was amazingly patient as we looked at condos and houses all over the Northeast side of the city. With each home that I placed an offer on, higher offers came rushing in. I even placed an offer on a house that didn’t have central air…and I bid $14,000 higher than the asking price! The result? A cash offer from elsewhere ruled the day.
Looking down the barrel of the gun that was the end of my lease, I knew that I would need to figure something out extraordinarily soon. I hired movers to put the majority of my belongings into storage. I slept on an air mattress in the apartment during the last week of my lease. I prayed. Then, I called families whose names came to me during my time of prayer and asked if I could stay with them for a week at a time while I continued to look.
“I could find something next week and be moving into a new place within a month,” I thought. This shouldn’t take too long. Well, I’ve been saying that for weeks.
As I type this, I’m sitting on the sofa of a friend’s house that I’m dog sitting and housesitting for. I never thought that I’d ever rely on a puppy to help me secure housing. But here we are. I’m thankful for that John-Brown-dog.
I haven’t given up hope. I know that God has something great in store for me. It will be a house better than I imagined. The caramel-colored makeup stains on the crumpled-up napkin in my car from this weekend’s tears remind me of my current reality while the Bible in my car reminds me of my future.
I’m going to chronicle my journey here. For the world. Because I know that thousands of other moderate-income millennials like me are sitting in the same boat…well, actually car…or tent…or sofa…and that’s not ok.
We deserve better.