Sean Elo-Rivera — My Eviction Story
Last week, our office introduced a framework for an overhaul of San Diego’s tenant protection ordinance. Shortly before the Council meeting began, someone asked me “is this personal to you?” My answer was short and simple: “yes.” Tenant protections and eviction prevention are very personal to me.
Just like many community leaders and elected officials, I have personal experiences that have given me the insight and motivation to address hard issues in our communities. Many of our leaders have personal experiences with dealing with the healthcare system and stand strong to fight for access for medical care. Some of our leaders have experiences with building a business and they stand strong for small businesses and startups. Our experiences are what gives us the inspiration and the knowledge to represent our constituents on those important issues.
My family and I have almost always been renters. Growing up, my parents stretched so we could live in nice homes in great neighborhoods, but we were renters just the same. Renters who were subject to unaffordable increases in rent and evictions.
I vividly remember a hurried move amidst a family crisis during my 8th grade year when we did our best to fit what we could into a storage unit and our family of five bounced around hotels. More than 25 years later, I recall not knowing how to explain the situation to my friends and can still feel the knots in my stomach generated by the uncertainty about what lied ahead.
Regrettably, that was not the only time an eviction has impacted me and my family.
In November of 2015, I was living in a Golden Hill studio when I received a call from my dad. He, my mom, and my youngest sister needed to be out of the home they were renting in Orange County and did not know where they would go. I was not making nearly enough money to provide financial assistance, but I had an idea on how to help: I would take over my friend’s lease on an apartment in City Heights and my parents would move into my low-rent studio to get back on their feet. With little time to waste, and to avoid my parents being denied in the application process, I kept the studio in my name, left my furniture behind for my parents, and they moved in.
Crisis averted — temporarily.
Unfortunately, shortly after my parents moved in, the property changed ownership. The family trust I had been renting from sold the building to a large corporate property management company. As a result, my parents and I were presented two options. One, to sign a new yearlong lease at a significantly higher rent they could not afford. And two, to agree to shorter commitments with the rent increasing incrementally every three months. The latter option was by no means a good one as it would lead to more than a doubling of rent over the course of a year, but it was best choice we had.
As is so often the case for those of us who have struggled financially, my family and I did what we had to do in the moment. The hope was my parents would be able to catch their breath and be able to move somewhere else before the rent got out of hand, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. The rent kept going up until it was too much to bear. And just like that, my parents needed to find a new place to live and I had an eviction on my record and a judgment against me that eventually resulted in garnished wages. In fact, I am only recently emerging from the long-term consequences of helping my family.
Thankfully, my parents’ housing situation is finally stable, but I know firsthand from my work in the community as well as the communication with the District 9 Council office that today’s rental environment is forcing thousands of San Diegans to face the impossible decisions my family and I encountered.
Decisions like seniors deciding between paying the final month of rent or taking the hit to their credit so they save the rent money for moving costs. Decisions like a mom finding a less expensive apartment in a different community or trying to survive in hotel rooms or a car so she can keep her kids in their schools for the rest of the academic year. And decisions like a family deciding whether to abandon their belongings in a storage unit so they have the money they need to get into another apartment.
There are no right choices in these scenarios, but there are opportunities to make changes that would prevent so many San Diegans from being forced to choose between short-term survival and long-term consequences. There is no doubt my experiences have added to the urgency I feel to strengthen tenant protections and eviction prevention. However, all of us who want a San Diego that works for middle-class and working-class folks should be hungry for protections that will prevent a new generation of San Diegans from feeling the lifelong impacts of evictions.
We know many people are affected by evictions. If you have been affected by an eviction, we encourage you to share your story about how it impacted you. Together, we can help folks understand what the implications of evictions are and why it’s so important to limit them.
