‘Rent is getting more expensive’: An Oakland family’s quest for affordable housing

This story was produced for The Oaklandside by El Tímpano, a Spanish-language reporting lab serving Oakland’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.

Lea esta historia en español.

I came to the Bay Area in 2015. A short time later I met my husband, and in 2019 we moved into an apartment over Logan Street in Oakland. In one bedroom, my husband and I and two children slept together. We paid $1,000 for one bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom. 

In the first week of June 2023, the woman who supervises the building told us to come to her office. I went with my husband and there she gave us a letter. She told us we had to leave because we didn’t go to the same church as the other tenants. The reason they wanted to evict us isn’t economic because, even though we don’t make that much money, we pay rent on time. I remember she also said that if we didn’t leave, a truck from the city would come and take our belongings. 

I said that, as tenants, we have rights, but she told us that if we wanted we could hire a lawyer, that the decision had already been made and we had to assume the consequences. 

This story is part of Amplify Oakland, our series of first-person stories shared by Oaklanders in their own words. Read more.

I don’t understand English very well, but with the help of Google Translate, I read that we had 30 days to leave the apartment. I thought, “Where am I going to take my children after July?” Our financial situation is currently unstable, but it has been getting worse since the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

My husband doesn’t work because he hurt his back. I used to clean houses, at least three in a week, but families started getting sick and canceling appointments, so I didn’t earn as much money. Then I worked at a restaurant that had to close because people weren’t going anymore. During that time, I sent money to my mother who still lives in Santa Rosa, Guatemala, from where I emigrated many years ago. I ran out of my savings. 

Here, my children are growing up. One of them is five years old. One of us must stay with him and my youngest child. If we go to a more expensive apartment we would have to work more hours and it gets complicated. I can’t afford a babysitter. 

I see a lot of people on the street and it’s because the rent is getting more and more expensive. Many of them have nowhere to go. They are left alone. When I came to Oakland I paid $200 for a room, then $500, and now it’s $1,000. 

Weeks ago, after we got the letter, we went looking for apartments and found one that was available over Harrison Street. We liked it but the problem was that the rent was $2,000 and had to be paid in advance. And not only that: We had to make a deposit of another $2,000. How are we going to pay for that? 

Then we went to San Leandro, and there it was $3,800 to rent a house, plus another $3,800 for a deposit. We liked it because it had two rooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen, but we couldn’t afford it on our own. To be able to pay that rent, I would have to clean three houses a day and do it on my own, no longer working for a company. More than 80 houses a month. 

We also had other experiences. We messaged a guy who posted an ad for an available rental on [Facebook] Marketplace. He told us that for now we could only go and see the house from the outside. We went and we liked it, so we asked him to give us the keys to see it inside, but he demanded that we deposit money through Zelle first. We said no, but he demanded and demanded. We felt he wanted to scam us. 

In Alameda, we visited an office where they were going to give us information about an apartment. Everything was fine until the woman who oversees applications asked about our social security and credit history. There was an interpreter because she didn’t speak Spanish. She started asking why we didn’t have social security and how we could possibly have a credit history. She said that people who live like us stole identities. 

I was very concerned and stressed because I didn’t have enough time to find a place to live. My husband told me that we better go back to Guatemala, but my children have a promising future here. 

I kept waiting for good news. I went to church, like every Sunday, hopeless. But then a friend of mine told me that she was moving to San Leandro and that the owner had a house for rent and that we should go and ask. 

Rent was $3,700 for the entire house, including three bedrooms and two bathrooms. We talked to two of my husband’s siblings who were also having trouble finding a place to live. We will all live there and split the bills. It’s the only way to live, for now. 

As told by Mirna Arana to Justo Robles. The story has been translated from Spanish.