How I Became Homeless

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/how-i-became-homeless



My eviction did not come with a dramatic pounding on the front door, like it happens in the movies. Just an unceremonious letter, lumped in between credit card offers and credit card bills. It would have been helpful if it had come in the form of a Howler, à la Harry Potter — literally screeching at me that if I was not out by that Friday, me and my belongings would be “forcibly removed” from the property. Instead the letter that contained my fate masqueraded as an innocent piece of junk mail. It remained unopened until I got home on a Monday evening around 7. In other words, in the four-day race to vacate my premises, I had pretty much lost one day.

The whole thing happened the week of July 4. Although my rent had been faithfully paid throughout my entire tenancy, the owners of the town home I had been renting for the past three years had not paid their mortgage in at least a third of that time. After a series of frantic phones calls (property management company, Real Estate Commission, and the sheriff’s department), I had determined a few unfortunate things. Because the owner — knowing of this impending doom — had delayed signing my new lease, I had little to no protection. The new owners were under no obligation to rent to me. No lease, no luck.
I still had to work that week. And longstanding plans for my three children to attend a family reunion with my ex-in-laws meant I would lose another crucial day to pack, plan and allow myself a small cushion of time for general freak-outs. I got the kids ready and drove them halfway between North Carolina and Pennsylvania. By the time I got home, I was exhausted from the eight-hour trip and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and slip into a temporary coma. But the real work was just beginning.

Chaos, confusion and panic attacks ensued over the next day and a half as I, along with a shifting crew of friends and family, crammed the entire contents of my three-bedroom townhouse into a 20 x 20 storage shed. I managed to pack a couple of suitcases of essentials, though looking at what I brought, I’m not sure what I could have been thinking. Fuzzy zebra shorts. A strapless bra. Every piece of jewelry I own stuffed into three giant Ziploc bags. It’s almost funny that I once believed this hodgepodge of paraphernalia would carry me through my transitional time. I figured it would be a week or two before I’d find my new place. Instead, four months has passed, and the joke has been on me ever since.