Street Spirit August 2004

From Public Housing to Homelessness

By Tiny and Linda William, PNN

The deep sounds of never-ending, mind-numbing, headache-generating traffic bombarded the weather-beaten glass of the 6 Motel (not to be confused with the pricier Motel 6), as I sat with displacement survivor and former Valencia Gardens’ tenant Linda William.

Driving up Highway 80 East, I kept referring to my friend and fellow Poor News Network (PNN) writer's careful directions. "It's sort of near Vallejo," she had said quietly on the phone, the weight of her horrendous dilemma flooding her voice. "I couldn't actually afford a motel in Vallejo; they were too expensive and all the cheap ones were filled," she said wearily.

It had been almost two years since Linda took the "sweet deal" offered by the S.F. Housing Authority to move out of her longtime residence at Valencia Gardens in San Francisco. Valencia Gardens is one of countless public housing projects in the Bay Area and across the nation labeled in "bad" condition and targeted for "redevelopment."

This has resulted in the massive displacement of low-income tenants from public housing to essentially "a piece of paper." That is, these tenants were handed a Section 8 voucher and a lot of promises of available market-rate or privately owned low-income housing projects, but ended up, like Linda, homeless. As those of us in the know say, public housing was better than no housing.

They gave me a Section 8 certificate and said I could go anywhere with it," Linda explained. "Of course, I had always had a dream of moving out of the city with my two kids, and I thought this was my big chance."

As Linda spoke, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I, too, was relying on a pending Section 8 certificate to stabilize the ever unstable housing of myself, my mother and my nine-month-old son; but from all the recent reports out of the Bush Administration, this "stable housing" might remain a dream.

"So with that certificate I started the search for housing in Vallejo, Fairfield and Marin," Linda continued. "Well, whaddya know, I found closed waiting lists on almost all the low-income housing units in all of those places; and all the rest of the landlords wouldn't even return my calls when I told them I had Section 8."

As Linda explained how she transferred her certificate to Alameda County hoping for better luck in Oakland, I remembered the hideously classic and racist experience of trying to find an apartment when I told landlords that I was on Section 8. "Oh no, I don't think so," they would say, dreams of welfare moms dancing in their land-holding heads.

Linda continued, "Eventually, I found a place in the middle of so much gang mess, that one of my babies almost got shot last month; so I gave up and moved to this motel. And now my Section 8 worker is telling me that it doesn't matter anyway, 'cause due to the Bush-inspired cuts they probably won't have any money left in the Section 8 program to fund another apartment for me anyway - and I'll end up homeless." Her voice trailed off into sadness and the whoosh of the highway filled the room's silence.

Linda was referring to the very serious cuts that the Section 8 program is facing from the Bush Administration, causing places like New York City to lose millions of dollars for existing Section 8 vouchers and Alameda County not having enough money in May to even cover the rents of vouchers already in use.

"And now I hear that people are being offered more sweet deals by the Housing Authority to move out of the Bayview so rich people like Newsom and his buddies can make big bucks redeveloping the Bayview," Linda said, then paused to hold back an onslaught of tears. "All I can say to those folks is: Don't be fooled. Hold onto what you have. Valencia Gardens had its problems, but it was still my home - it was still housing."

Call PNN at (415) 863-6306. To get involved in fighting the redevelopment effort of the Bayview, call Bianca Henry at Family Rights and Dignity at (415) 346-3740.

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