A teacher without housing

When the Housing Justice Collective was formed, we realized that before we could push for positive change or work to encourage the city and county to do so, we needed to find out more about the specific challenges our unhoused community members face. To do this we held several small discussion groups over the course of several weeks, with both homeless people and the outreach workers that try to assist them. This is one of the stories we heard.

At one of our discussion groups, we met S, a young black woman that is a teacher. Forced to move back to Ithaca due to a child custody case, she could not find full-time work, and, with a child, adding a 2nd job would require childcare. After living in a number of disastrous apartment situations (1 was foreclosed on so the utilities suddenly turned off, another she and her child were terrorized by a neighbor), she moved into a friend’s house who allowed her to stay there while they were away, and she had a letter from them saying the place was only available until a certain date. She applied to DSS but was told she needed a letter from her previous landlord that she didn’t live there, and a letter from her mother that she couldn’t live with her, etc. etc. She was repeatedly asked if she had showered! Seemingly a  ploy to try to get her disclose she actually had a place to stay, and with racial undertones. She was denied housing assistance  at first, eventually approved, but was not given an application for Section 8 housing, she had to ask (many would not realize they had to do this). She noted the difficulty of trying to remember every place you have stayed for the last few weeks when you have been unhoused, and needing an advocate to get through the system. At last contact she and her child had been placed in a motel on a list for housing.