Lisa’s Story

In 2012 when I was laid off, I was making $25 per hour, and that was good money. It was really hard for me to say, “okay, I’m going to go try to find a job making minimum wage now.” I think that was part of the issue, part of the reason that I stayed homeless for so long. I didn’t want to go back… I wanted to keep going.

I was an Architectural Drafter and Designer, but I didn’t go to school for it. I was hired by my architecture teacher at Cabrillo after I separated from my husband. He basically paid me to teach me. He would sit there for hours and teach me things. He started me off at $10 per hour in 2000 and by the end of the year I was making $17. 

When 9/11 happened, all the construction work dried up in Santa Cruz County. So he had to lay me off, but he waited until I got another job to do it. I got a job in Hollister, remodeling the Veterans Hall and it was a temporary job, just for ‘that’ project. So I got the position and basically had to ‘fake it’. They wanted someone who did hand drafting and I could do it, but I didn’t have much practice at it.

They liked me so much that they kept me. I ended up being there for five years and what I didn’t know I had to figure out on my own, and I did!.  After that I went to two other firms and the last firm I worked for I was the only person out of like twenty five of us who didn’t have a degree in either Interior Design or Architecture or whatever. I was proud of that. 

I was married at the time, but my husband didn’t work, he wouldn’t work. He did stucco when we got together but he fell at work. I think he also got lazy. He had this case going on to sue the company, and it took a while. So I did everything. I worked, cleaned, cooked, and I was his translator, I did everything. It was really stressful. I have two boys and he had two kids and I would babysit his kids for him so that his ex-wife could work. 

When I got divorced, my head was so far gone. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t tell a story. I’d start in the middle and then go backwards and then go forwards. I couldn’t remember any words, names. It was awful. I was a mess.

I think I’m a little better. I’m still like I’m forgetting words, but it’s getting a lot better, because I’ll remember them faster. 

We were living in Oxnard and I was working in Mountain View.  I did that for a year and a half, commuting back and forth every week and just going home on the weekend to get ready to come back again. It was really hard on me.  I took a job managing the apartment I was living in. It was at a 33 unit apartment building and they told me that the job would be 8-5PM, Monday through Friday… It [turned out to be] 24/7 for a $400 discount on my rent. I had my boys with me, one was in high school and the other was going to Ventura College. My husband was still not working and I finally convinced him to try to get a stucco job again, because he was so good at it. 

It turned out my boss was a slumlord and he wasn’t fixing things. One day a couple of his investors showed up and asked me why things weren’t fixed and why were there so many apartments empty… I had no idea. I told the property manager everything that’s going on but there was nothing I could do from there. They blamed me and said I wasn’t telling them and so I got fired from that and after that we couldn’t make the rent. So, we had to move out, the four of us. 

My boys didn’t have anywhere to go and that was really hard. My husband and I came up here (to Santa Cruz) and they stayed down there, because they were finishing their semester at Ventura College. They were both at Ventura College by then and one of my son’s had a car, so he stayed and finished and my other son’s boyfriend rented them an apartment for him to have somewhere to stay… It was horrible.  

Everything I had worked for was gone. My husband had not contributed anything as far as anything in the house and I had to go through all of my things and decide what I could keep and what I would have to give up.  It was like [losing] everything I had accomplished in my whole adult life and I was literally going in circles trying to figure out what to keep. 

I ended up keeping only the things that could not be replaced, my son’s baby pictures, etc. I got rid of the furniture but I kept my grandmother’s china and things like that. I only had a certain amount of money to spend on storage, so I stored those things. But eventually an ex-boyfriend of mine threw all my stuff away in the dump. Everything.

That used to get me really upset. But now [my perspective is that] it was just ‘things’ and I have the memories. 

We came to Santa Cruz and I was staying with my best friend in Watsonville part of the week, and then with my mother the other part of the week. My mother had a five bedroom, three bath house. I planned to go back to school to get my Architecture degree at West Valley. [I was speaking to] one of my old bosses from the last firm I worked at and he was giving me advice on what classes I should take.

It was going really well for me, I had a full schedule. And then my mother kicked me out. I planned to stay with her to go to school full time but over a small argument she closed the door on me. 

[At that point] I was in my car, in Watsonville, by myself. 

I had this friend and he had a garage that he and his friends would party in all the time. So sometimes I’d call him up to stay at his place when I didn’t want to be in the car all night. I felt safe there. 

I found a room to rent from a friend of mine and I lived there for about two years. I ended up getting sick because there was so much mold in the house. They found out there was a sewer line underneath my bedroom that had broken and the stuff was growing up through the padding. So I got really sick. 

I went to Los Angeles after that to stay where my sons were living, in a storefront my dad owned. My ex-husband was renting it for him and my sons to live in. So I went and stayed with them, but then my stepmother kicked us all out. So I was on the streets and in my car in L.A. for a while and then I came back to Santa Cruz and was living with a boyfriend. I stayed with him for a while and then he kicked me out and threw away all of my belongings. It was horrible. 

I ended up at Telecare because I was suicidal. I stayed for a few weeks, which was really good for me. My sons wanted me to stay there longer because they really liked what was happening with me, but they wouldn’t let me. I was back and forth on the streets and with my ex-husband… I was all over the place. 

I was staying up at the Armory and got kicked out for a medical issue I had been dealing with.  They called the cops on me and were really abusive. They hurt me and they took me out of my tent in my bra in handcuffs and walked me out in front of everyone.

There were like 20 cops total and mental health was up there. They were supposed to help me but they didn’t do anything. I ended up in a padded cell for 24 hours. I was so traumatized and so terrified of the police after that.

That’s how I got to Housing Matters. I had just gotten on the list and an hour later a case worker called me and said I move-in ‘tomorrow’. 

I really like the fact that Housing Matters lets you do ‘what you’ve got to do’, or ‘not at all’. The process moves forward and you have the help you need… Everyone’s so nice and it was a good experience.

Eventually, my case manager Katie gave me the number of a home owner who wanted to rent to [someone currently experiencing homelessness]. That same day, I went and saw it and she said, “if you like it, you can have it. It’s yours.” 

The majority of landlords do not want to rent to anyone who’s [currently experiencing] homeless and the ones that do, end up kicking them out. Knowing that she actually wanted to rent to me made me feel a lot more secure in being there. I think that’s very admirable that she wanted to do that. 

It feels good and hopefully, once I get my voucher, then my rent will be a third of my income and I’ll be able to stay there. Abode is paying for my unit currently until I get my voucher and then once I get my voucher, I’ll start paying for the unit. The first month I’ll pay 10% of the portion of the rent, and then 20% the next month and so on until I’m paying it all. 

I always said if I ever got out of being homeless, I wanted to help [people]. My son always told me, “Ma, you should work on something that helps people, cause you’re always helping everybody.” They’ve always watched me help all my friends and, I guess they’re right. I don’t know if I want to be paid for it but, I gotta live, right?

This story was collected in April 2024 by Andrea Feltz, Community Conversations Program Manager
Photography by Abram Katz