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It was mid-2023 when her life came crashing down around her, fast. After 14 years in the same townhouse, Deborah found herself unable to keep up with rent increases and additional fees that were tacked on with each lease renewal.
Even with the astronomical increases, she managed to pay down the principal each month. For the accrued fees, she’d hoped as a long-time tenant in good standing, that property managers would work with her. Initially, verbal agreements were made in good faith.
Within days of one such agreement, the management company did an about-face and became completely unresponsive. A few days later, Deborah came home to a 5-day eviction notice slapped on the same front door she’d walked through for the past fourteen years. The dominos fell quickly from there.
Within a week, she found herself in a virtual courtroom waiting to plead her eviction case, her only hope of staying in her home. With her mind racing and her options unclear, Deborah described the difficulty of navigating the court proceedings while trying to maintain her work-from-home job as a health insurance support specialist. She recalls the helpless feeling.
“You just wait and wait and wait... for hours all day long for your name to be called - it was insane. Finally I just gave up because the landlord there kept telling me - you’re gonna lose anyway. You’re gonna lose anyway.” In the chaos, she was forced to quit her remote healthcare job. Without secure internet access, she became ineligible to fill job requirements handling sensitive data. So there she was, her world turned on its head.
In less than two weeks, after 70 years. No job, no apartment, and nowhere to go.
To add insult to injury, Deborah was given little time to make arrangements for her possessions. She moved what she could into storage. But her entertainment system, couches, dishware, and multiple bikes, she estimates at least $6,000 worth of property, now belonged to her landlord.
At the time of her eviction, her rent had ballooned to $1,700 a month plus utilities. That's more than she receives monthly from Social Security by a long shot, not to mention the cost of food, clothing, transportation, internet, etc. On her first night out, Deborah managed to book a hotel room, which was the beginning of a new and terrifying chapter.
Scared, alone, and angry, Deborah spent the next few months bouncing from place to place, unsure exactly when her funds would run out, and knowing that that day would soon come. Follow us for part two of Deborah’s housing journey in next week’s newsletter.
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