60 days to find a home: Lack of affordable housing forces renters to settle

She had saved her unemployment checks for a security deposit and her last bit of optimism for the search to come. Finally her name had risen to the top of the list, so Ebony Lott went to Tempe to collect the piece of paper that made it all possible.

Housing Choice Voucher Program, it read at the top. Unit Size: 4. Expiration Date: 05/08/2017.

Ebony, 32, slipped the voucher back into its bright yellow folder and waited. The room where the city passed out Section 8 vouchers had a blank TV in the corner and a table full of apartment listings against the wall, and now Housing Services supervisor Theresa James entered to start the meeting she wished she could hold more often. 

“The goal of this program is that you get affordable, decent, safe and sanitary housing,” James said. “We want you to have breathing room in your budget, so that you’re not having to make hard choices.”

Ebony said nothing. Already she had spent six years making hard choices, unable to stop her family’s slide from a string of temporary apartments to a Salvation Army homeless shelter. They fell into an affordable-housing crisis that has now spread to every county in the United States, leaving more than 7.7 million poor American households with severe housing needs and a government safety net whose holes grew larger each year.

For six years Ebony’s name lingered on a wait list, moving through the overburdened bottleneck that was the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8. A Section 8 voucher would allow her to rent an apartment and have the government pay 70 percent of the rent, giving her budget the breathing room to jump-start the climb out of poverty.

THE NEW HOUSING CRISIS | PART 1:   Can't afford the rent, can't afford to move | PART 2: 60 days to find a home | PART 3:  'Here for the eviction' | PART 4:   $200 from home | PART 5:  'It just has to go' | PART 6:  Into the trees | PART 7: Rapid evictions, few options

Now a voucher was in her hands, and there was just one thing left: Ebony had to find a home, and she had 60 days to do it. If that date passed and she hadn’t signed a lease, she could lose her voucher and her best chance at an affordable home.

In Tempe, 39 percent of Section 8 vouchers expired without a signed lease.

“Anybody got a four?” James asked now, pointing to the space on each voucher that showed how many bedrooms a person could afford.

“I do,” Ebony said, raising a hand. She had four children at home and one on the way, due sometime in the next few weeks. There had been no time to celebrate, no pink walls to decorate for another daughter. She learned she was pregnant at the height of her life’s chaos, in the same summer she lost her father and her job and her home.

“OK,” James said. “Your payment standard is $1,753.”

Ebony pulled out another page and flipped it over, scratching out the math. Housing authorities across the country set their own payment standards, using their cities' cost of living to decide how much their vouchers are worth. In Tempe, a four-bedroom voucher was good for a $1,753-a-month apartment. All Ebony wanted was a clean place with a washer and dryer.

“I know this is the part of the briefing where people freak out,” James said, because Tempe had become one of tightest markets in the country for poor renters. For every 100 extremely low-income American households, there are 29 affordable and available places to live. That number drops to 15 in the Phoenix metro area. In Tempe, where the population skewed young and wealthy, there are 10.

And Ebony needed to find one.

“How long is your voucher good for?” James asked as the meeting ended, making sure everyone knew the deadline.

"Sixty days," Ebony said, and it felt like so much time.  

On the edge, then over the edge

She was four months pregnant when her name was called, seven months when she went in for one last interview, and by the time Ebony received her voucher she was too far along to do anything but browse apartments on her phone. She tried a website named GoSection8.com, typing in her long-shot search terms.

Bedrooms: Four. Maximum rent: $1,800.

A city of 182,000 people had just 750 options for renters below the poverty line. But how many of those could hold a woman and her five children? How many had landlords who would accept a Section 8 voucher and the extra paperwork that came with it? Did an apartment exist that could stay under her voucher’s rent limit, and pass an inspection, and be ready for her to move in 60 days?

Sorry! the screen flashed. Your search returned no results.

Ebony needed just one result. When Tempe opened its wait list in 2011, she had three kids, a job at MetroPCS and an apartment in Phoenix, but constantly had to wait for the next week’s check to pay her bills. She could make it on her own, but worried about losing her job. If no check came the next week, the voucher would keep the family housed. 

So Ebony added her name. When Mesa opened its wait list, she applied for that, too. Nobody told her how long the wait would be. Her name bounced through lists she never saw.

One year passed. She had a fourth child, a girl named Imani. She shared a condo with her little brother, then moved into a low-income apartment where roaches scattered in the fluorescent kitchen lights. Another year went by, then two. Three. Four. She earned enough to make rent each month, holding together a life that was steady but never easy.

After five years stranded on wait lists, that steady life crumbled.

For most of her adult life, Ebony’s father called on her when he needed a place to stay or a few days to reset himself. Last March, he called with a diagnosis. Esophageal cancer. Stage IV. The doctor told his family to prepare for a funeral. Soon he required 24-hour care, and he moved into Ebony’s apartment. Her oldest son, Will, avoided him, terrified his grandfather was going to die while he was in the room.

They needed more space, so she found a four-bedroom house in west Phoenix and paid the landlord $2,000 to move in. “Just take it,” Ebony told him, even though the toilets leaked and the rent was more than she could afford.

Medicaid paid for hospice nurses to visit the house three times each week, and the rest was left to Ebony. She found a job that let her work from home, taking customer service calls for David’s Bridal. Every few minutes she pulled herself away from customers to help him change clothes, make him lunch, bring him another round of medicine. She learned she was pregnant, a fifth child on the way. The missed calls piled up. David’s Bridal fired her. She declared bankruptcy, left to scrape through each month on food stamps and $1,000 in unemployment checks.

Ebony's father died last September. Ebony cut off one of his graying curls and sealed it in a plastic baggie. Four months pregnant and short on rent, she moved out before the landlord could file for eviction.

The letter from Tempe came two weeks later, while Ebony and the kids were staying with a cousin in the San Tan Valley area. As she read it, six years of waiting ended. A Section 8 voucher was ready for her. She was moving to Tempe. 

She brought her income statements and Social Security cards to the Housing office. Her cousin’s house grew too crowded, so Ebony moved into a Salvation Army family shelter and waited for her voucher.

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'Call next week and see'

And now the first week had slipped by. Seven to go.

Eight days after the voucher meeting, Ebony induced labor and gave birth to Kamariya, a girl with bulging cheeks and a mess of black hair. For two days Ebony lay in the hospital, telling herself, “I’m going to be out of here soon,” trying to shut off her mind when it turned to vouchers and apartments and one more move.

James had warned that it could take longer than Ebony expected. Her best advice was that people should start searching right away. In Tempe, the average Section 8 recipient signed a lease after 51 days. When Kamariya was born, Ebony had 52 days left.

Ebony scrambled to catch up. James recommended driving around the city and stopping at “For Lease” signs, but Ebony had a newborn and no car, only her phone and an empty schedule. She spent $10 on an app that produced Section 8 listings and probed for leads on Facebook. “Im trying to relocate to Tempe,” she wrote, “anyone knows of any private owners … ” She pulled up apartment listings and called every number, 30 or 40 a day, sometimes calling the same listing twice, forgetting she had already been rejected.

One landlord after another said she would never find four bedrooms in Tempe. Everywhere she heard the same answers: Her voucher couldn’t cover the rent. The apartment wouldn’t be ready for a few months. There was a wait-list, or a thousand-dollar security deposit, or the landlord didn’t want her at all.

“Sorry, we don’t take Section 8,” one landlord told her.

“Can you pay the first and last month’s rent?” asked another.

“We don’t accept that program.”

“Call next week and see.”

With little time, the wish list shortens

She tried to see the shelter as another cramped apartment, one with two tiny bedrooms and a 9 p.m. curfew. Each family was allowed one visitor. Ebony chose her cousin, who could watch the kids and loan Ebony her truck to escape for a few hours. The kids couldn’t have friends over. Kamariya’s father couldn’t come see his daughter.

But it was rent-free and comfortable. And it was all temporary, Ebony told herself. She had to move out of the shelter by May 15, one week after her voucher expired.

But first she had to find somewhere to go, and Ebony was starting to believe the landlords were right. She had been promised four bedrooms, but it wouldn’t be possible. Not at her price. Not in 60 days.

A smaller apartment, she decided, was better than moving to another shelter.

Ebony tried GoSection8 again. When the screen loaded, only one result appeared: A three-bedroom apartment for $1,350, in the part of Tempe James had suggested she avoid. A city map in Ebony’s yellow folder placed the address inside Tempe’s high-poverty areas, and the accompanying voucher trapped her there.

Date available: NOW, the listing read. Ebony called immediately. The landlord, a large Nigerian man named Duvo, told her somebody else had already paid the deposit, but if she hurried, she could be second in line. “Your tenancy is a backup,” he texted her.

Ebony had no other options. She asked to see the apartment. He told her to come at 10 a.m.

'It's been kind of difficult'

The next morning, a cousin came to the shelter to watch Kamariya. Ebony borrowed her truck and left without eating breakfast, anxious to see an apartment in person. She brought her 4-year-old daughter, her voucher and $500 in cash.

The parking lot was empty when Ebony pulled in. She checked the time on her phone. Ten o’clock came and went, and still Duvo hadn’t arrived. She read through their text messages again and worried somebody else really had paid the deposit, that something about their conversations never felt right, that this apartment had already slipped through her grasp and she would have to start over with 32 days left.

Ebony could apply for an extension if her expiration date drew close, but the sheet that tracked her apartment visits was still blank. Without any proof she had been looking, an extension would be unlikely. She could lose her voucher and her chance at an affordable home. Six years of waiting, gone to waste.

Duvo’s car crawled around the corner. “You said you have your stuff from Tempe?” he asked, skipping introductions. A mass of keys jingled in his pocket.

“Yeah,” Ebony said, pointing at the bag draped over her shoulder. “It’s been kind of difficult.”

Duvo didn’t respond. He brushed past Ebony, trudged to the apartment's front door and stopped. “You have your voucher with you?”

“Yeah,” Ebony said again.

“Oh,” he said, his mood brightening. He unlocked the screen door and the front door behind it and waved Ebony through. “Come on in.”

Ebony leaned through the door frame and stared down the narrow front hallway. The apartment was dark and empty, mostly clean, with a broom and dustpan sitting on the off-white tile floors. A warped mirror covered one wall.

She stepped in and headed upstairs, reconfiguring how they would all fit into three bedrooms. A film of dust covered the faux hardwood floors. Two small refrigerators sat in the master bedroom. Duvo said he’d remove those. She leaned down to examine the bathroom’s cracked tile and cracking grout. 

“Is there a washer and dryer?” she asked.

“It’s downstairs,” Duvo said, following close behind.

She nodded, satisfied she could meet at least one demand. This would have to do.

“Can you fill out the form?” she asked, reaching for the thick blue packet.

A long pause. Duvo took her by the arm and led her onto the balcony. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “You know the area, right?”

“I guess.”

“Are you OK living with white people?” Duvo asked, twirling a finger as if they were surrounded. “You don’t have a problem? With the racism?”

Ebony swallowed a laugh. She grew up in mid-'90s Detroit, surrounded by the violent decline that sent the city into a spiral. When Ebony was 16, her mother sent her to Project Challenge military school in Arizona, where she lived in uniforms and neatly aligned rows of students. That first year, a pilot gave her control of their propeller plane midflight. Nobody had ever taught her how to fly, but for a moment she kept the plane steady, trying to hold on until the pilot took over again. Now she had five children and an ever-nearer deadline.

She could handle a white neighborhood.

“I live in a home,” she told Duvo. “I can protect myself.”

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Waiting for the inspection

Back downstairs, Duvo opened a folder and pulled out a one-page application form. Ebony signed her name and left to buy a $500 money order for the security deposit. Driving to the nearest Food City store, she built a mental list of the apartment’s problems. The unforgiving tile floors already hurt her back. He was asking too much in rent. Eventually they would need that fourth bedroom. Once Kamariya started walking, the staircase could be a hazard. It needed a deep cleaning. 

When she returned, Duvo was almost finished with the packet. She signed the money order and handed it over. He folded it and slipped it into his pocket, making no mention of the person he claimed had already paid the deposit.

“Do they want this, too?” he asked, pointing at the last empty form, a page of general information about the apartment.

“They’re gonna want that,” Ebony said, and he rolled his eyes. “I know. It’s a lot.”

They finished the packet, and Ebony reminded him the city would call for the inspection. Once it passed — if it passed — they could sign the lease.

She drove to the Tempe housing office, where a shelf that held flyers of Section 8 listings was mostly empty. WE HAVE NO FOUR (4) BEDROOM LISTINGS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME! read a sign taped over the front. Ebony waited in line and handed the packet to a receptionist. “Was I supposed to pay the deposit already?” she asked.

Behind the desk, the woman frowned. Hadn’t they been clear in the briefing? That money was never coming back, even if the apartment failed its inspection. They always recommended waiting, but the landlord already had the money order.

“Just wait to sign the lease,” she told Ebony. “Until we get it inspected.”

Ebony nodded, hoping the inspection wouldn’t take long. She was running out of time in the shelter. Soon she would have nowhere to go. If the inspection failed, if those cracked tiles and sagging floors pushed the apartment past the city's standards, she didn’t know where else to look.

Her cellphone chimed as Ebony walked back to the truck. A text from her cousin. Kamariya had kept her awake, and neither of them had been able to sleep. Could she hurry back to the shelter?

Not perfect, but it was hers

One more weekend. Ebony could make it one more weekend in the shelter. By now she would settle for anything else, but first the government had to make sure the apartment was safe.

Tempe’s housing inspector arrived and completed Form 52580-A, the 19-page list of basic living standards required in every Section 8 apartment. He made sure the air-conditioning worked, that each bedroom had a window, that there was a bathroom and kitchen. There were no rats, no visible roaches. The walls and ceiling were in good shape. The foundation was sturdy.

The apartment passed.

“Hello, Ebony,” Duvo said when Ebony arrived the next morning to sign the lease, and immediately she launched into the questions she had forgotten to ask. Where’s the mailbox? Did the apartment come with a parking spot? What was her account number? How should she pay the rent?

“If the children go outside,” Duvo said, walking inside, “don’t let them eat the dirt.”

“Sure,” Ebony said, glancing out the window.

The inspection only checked for lead-based paint, Duvo explained. There was lead in the soil outside. “The government says we have to tell you that.”

He slapped Ebony’s lease on the counter and hurried through the pages, turning each one before she had a chance to read it. She stopped him at the last page. A month’s rent was $1,350. With her voucher, Ebony had to pay 30 percent of her monthly income. She owed him $151 a month. Breathing room.

She signed her name, and Duvo led her outside to see the mailbox and her parking space. Ebony made sure it was covered, kept out of the sun. After working from home for so long, the road appealed to her. She wanted to lease a car and drive for Uber or Lyft. That would let her work her own hours, set her own schedule. She would be in control. 

“So, you’re set,” Duvo said. He left her with the keys and a stack of pre-stamped envelopes to mail the rent.

Locking the door again, she took one more tour of the apartment, assigning bedrooms. She claimed the large one near the balcony, so the kids didn’t climb out there. The girls would share the room across the hall. Her son could have the one downstairs. She flipped on the bathroom lights and checked her reflection in the mirror. She checked the blinds, the locks, the closets, everything she skipped over in her hurry to sign a lease. In her head she pictured where her belongings would go: Her couch against the wall, a small TV in the corner, the box that held her father’s ashes and the plastic baggie of his hair on the kitchen counter.

She needed to rent a moving truck, but didn’t have a bank account. They would have to spend a few more nights in the shelter.

Nothing was perfect, but everything was hers. She turned to leave, and Imani tugged at her arm. “I want to get the keys,” she said.

“No, you don’t need the keys,” Ebony said, dropping them into her purse. “I’ve got this for now.”

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