Being told that you know we're going to
have to be out and we have nowhere to go.
Lisa Antich and her family have
lived in this home in Southeast
Portland for about 10 years.
Out of the blue, their landlord
sold it to an out of state buyer.
It was heart wrenching. My biggest fear is.
We're gonna end up sleeping in my car.
And how am I going to tell my child died?
That's my biggest fear.
The family lives on $1000 a
month between money she gets for
her disability and retirement.
It's hard. It's hard and I'm trying
to figure out how to. How to do it?
And everything's a waiting list
and they don't have time to wait.
We're out of days we're on borrowed time.
I was supposed to be out
since the 30th of last month.
She can't find an apartment
in her budget and has had no
luck getting a housing voucher.
A lot of them wouldn't even
help us until we're in the car.
Yeah, and then a lot of them won't
help us because I'm not addicted
to drugs and I don't drink alcohol.
She's afraid of what life on
the streets would be like.
I am terrified. I'm terrified my uncle
was just killed on her in 36 walking
down the street just it was on the news,
just like a couple weeks ago,
their plan to sleep in the car since
the motel room is too expensive.
Well, first of all, it should never happen.
Families and their kids should always
have alternatives and affordable rents
and and no family should be forced to
live in homelessness with their child.
That's the director of
Portland Housing Bureau,
but no kids should be living
in a car on the street.
I'm trapped. I don't I.
I can't afford to move and then
I don't have the credit to move
in. Salem is another side of this crisis.
Kathleen Quinn is disabled and lives
on a fixed income of $850 a month.
She's been at this apartment for about 6
years and it's been 1 issue after another,
and I've been telling them how hard
it is for me to breathe in here.
Black mold coats her walls and
windows is under her sink in bedroom
carpet and all over her clothes.
My carpet. My furniture, my
Birkenstocks, everything, everything.
The septic tank floods into her apartment
and but this trying to live in this.
It's been horrifying. 1520 boxes
moving boxes fill her living room so
I I think I have enough.
She's preparing to move even
though she has nowhere to go.
So this is the.
Bathroom and the water heaters in
there that flooded and in the bedroom.
This whole window had to be taken
out and it was super full of mold.
Yeah, that's inhumane.
It's inhumane to expect people.
To live in such high levels
of mold and ignore them and.
And just like Lisa, she's tried calling
people for help, but gets nowhere.
We don't know where we're gonna go.
We don't know what we're going to do.
We don't know where we're gonna be.
Now I reached out to Kathleen's
property manager and I just
heard back from them.
They say they do take concerns like hers
very seriously and have worked with
her to address the issues she faces.
But when I talked with the
director of Portland Housing,
she said families in these positions
should contact the Joint Office of
Homeless Services or the Portland
Housing Bureau since there are
transitional housing options to keep
children and families off the streets.
Blair, this is such an important
glimpse into what so many people in our
Community are going through right now.
Affordable housing units actually
just opened up this week and
more are on the way. Is that right?
That's right, I mean,
in Portland alone there are 936
new affordable homes opening for
families and more than 4000 units of
affordable housing are on the way.
Blair, thanks so much for that update.