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"Being evicted suddenly destroyed what little financial security we had, made us homeless for a time, and took us almost a year to recover from."
Pam Walsh
Gresham
Pam and her girlfriend experienced significant financial and personal stress after receiving a no-cause eviction following a monthly rent increase of over 14%.
At the beginning of November 2015, my girlfriend and I were no cause evicted from their home, and for the final months our rent was increased by over 14%.
Having a month to move from your house is difficult, but to have it happen at a time that is supposed to be for family and relaxing made it much worse. We missed our Thanksgiving dinner, and in our house, that’s really important.
By the end of the month, we found a place we could move into for about $5,500 after deposits, fees, and first and last month’s rent (at the time, I only made about $1,650/month after taxes). While we borrowed and scraped together the money to move in, we couldn’t until the 11th of December. This meant we were homeless for almost two weeks.
We were saying to each other, “you sleep in the car, and I’ll sleep outside it.” We couldn’t afford a hotel room for a couple of nights. We just lucked out, or we would have been on the streets.
We spent that time living a half-hour apart on different friends’ couches, and the stress and difficulty of being separated and trying to figure out housing while working full time was horrible.
On top of that, our finances were stretched
further than they could go. With all the moving from a house to two storage units to another house, I missed five hours of work. For us, that meant were out about $65. That may not seem like a lot, but when we’re trying to figure out how are we going to get money for the Uhaul, the storage pod, then my car broke down, and we don’t know where we are going to lay our heads at night?
In fact, we had to let bills go, because we got so behind. And then we were trying to catch
up – and it took a couple of months – but we got things straightened out.
Being evicted suddenly destroyed what little financial security we had, made us homeless for a time, and took us almost a year to recover from. Renters like me need protections and support so that our lives aren’t turned upside down just because our landlord wants to.