- [Interviewer] David, we're here in Venice,
you live in an RV with your daughter.
Tell me about it.
- Okay.
Well, this RV thing started before we actually got this RV,
about I'm a say nine months ago now.
We were living in our car,
before that we were living in apartments.
Now, my daughter had an apartment with her boyfriend,
I was rooming with someone else,
and consequently, the long story short
is that we end up both being out on the street
at the same time.
I had a vehicle, she had a vehicle,
so we started sleeping in the vehicles.
We do have a dog and two cats,
so that was also a difficulty in getting housing.
Housing also wanted a 700 credit score,
upwards of three, $4000 to move in,
counting first, last month's rent
with the pet deposits, et cetera.
So, my story is that to facilitate not being in the car
and being in between that gap
of not being able to find affordable housing,
we decided to spend that money on an RV
so we would have some place to sleep.
- [Interviewer] Now, while all this is going on,
you both are working.
You have full time jobs.
- That is correct.
My daughter's actually worked two jobs,
I've actually worked two jobs as well,
but this job I have right now was been semi-full time.
I'll say that.
The hours fluctuate.
- [Interviewer] But you're working.
- Yes, definitely working. - Even when you're living
in your cars, you're working.
- Exactly.
- [Interviewer] But you just couldn't afford an apartment.
- That is correct.
It's very difficult to stack three, $4000
when you're trying to eat and you're trying to bathe
and care for each other and to other things,
like I have a medical situation going on right now
that's taken all the money that I just worked for
last week out of my pocket and I don't know
where the next money's coming from
and I still don't have a place to live
except for this RV.
- [Interviewer] Now, you're telling me
living in an RV is like
- Yeah, all that, that thing.
Living in an RV to me seems, and I try to do this,
I try to laugh at it humorously,
but it's like living in a spaceship,
like the movie Lost in Space or Star Trek
where you get into your ship and you fuel up
and you say, oh, I wanna go to the next adventure,
I wanna go to some land where it's peaceful
where they'll let me be me,
and then you pull in to wherever it is
and undoubtedly, in nine months I've seen
a lot of different reactions, most of them being negative.
Some people are okay with it,
but a lot of them are like, hey, get out of here.
You can't be here.
And then, they have no answers as to where
you're supposed to go.
If you have anything over a 22 foot trailer,
then that also makes more parking restrictions,
so again, you don't have a place to go.
It's interesting because sometimes it's actually like
when you park somewhere and you get out
and you plant and you think, this must be friendly,
there might be somebody in another RV
that comes out and says, hey, there's too many
of them here, they're gonna run us off,
so it really is kinda like being the Lost in Space,
and then, you know, people steal stuff off our your ship.
- [Interviewer] It's dangerous wherever you go,
that new planet. - It's dangerous.
- [Interviewer] Or that new parking spot.
- And the parking enforcement is brutal over here.
In fact, today my daughter just got a ticket
while she was standing there.
Her car was parked in the red about six,
maybe to eight inches, and the parking enforcement lady
got out and wrote her a ticket
while she was yet standing there,
saying I'm gonna move my car,
but those tickets add up and we've got...
In fact, that's why I don't have my Jeep anymore
because I got parking tickets trying to sleep
in places that I thought were gonna be cool to sleep
and they gave me a lot of - Oh, my gosh.
- Yeah, so that's actually why I'm doing bicycles.
That's my hobby now.
That's because I don't have a car anymore
and that was my house.
That literally was my house when I took that.
I watched them boot it and take it two days later.
- Oh, my gosh. - Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Now, the hardest part of mobile homeless
is finding a safe place to park
and you've been out here nine months.
- Indeed.
- [Interviewer] That must be crazy.
Tell me about it.
- Yeah, well when I first purchased this RV,
I guess about nine months ago,
we looked and saw where were all the other RVs were parked
in this area, in the Venice area,
and there were a lot of 'em parked on Venice Boulevard
west of four oh five, all the way down to Lincoln.
Okay, so we went over there first
and we parked there and we were there
about two hours and I turned everything off,
it was like our first day, and then I got ready
to step outside and there was a manager
of a department building and he came out
and he said, you can't be here.
And I said, okay, you gotta explain a little bit more.
What do you mean?
You're gonna be here four, five days,
you're gonna be here a week.
And I said, sir, I just pulled up here.
How do you know that I'm gonna be here any days?
Everybody says that and they stay.
So, my daughter popped out and she said,
well, what's the problem?
You just don't want us to be here, right?
And he said, yes, that's the problem.
My tenants don't wanna be here, they don't wanna see you.
- [Interviewer] But you don't have any other place to go.
- Well, at that time I definitely didn't
because I had a charging problem
and I couldn't start the vehicle,
so I spent the next two hours racking my brain,
trying to figure out how to get that vehicle out of there
because that was my first experience.
Now since then, I've gotten my charging situation
a bit better and I've kinda figured out
that if you're not around a business or a residence,
they don't bother you too much,
but I've been at this kinda spot here, this spot here,
for about two months and they've tried
to ticket me four times.
In fact, I just was literally on the front,
wiping the window, and the lady was behind me
writing a ticket and my daughter said, oh, here she comes,
and I jumped in and took off with everything
still wrapped up on it, so it's difficult
and it takes money out of your pocket
and it takes time and it's stressful and yeah.
- [Interviewer] So, this is no way to live.
- No, it isn't and I think we want what everybody else wants
and that's just a couple of walls and a mirror
and a bathroom where you can do your things
that you need to do in private, bathe yourself, whatever,
medicate yourself, get your med
- [Interviewer] Have some privacy
- Have some privacy, some place to cook your meals.
Yeah, so we're not asking too much more than that,
but what I am really asking is can we make it affordable?
Can we make housing, just as simple as housing, affordable?
If you have a job and you're not able to afford a car
and a place to live, then it becomes a little bit futile
and then it becomes depressing
and that's why people fall into these holes
they can't get out and they're stuck with a basket,
pushing it down the street.
I will say this: my daughter's story is slightly different.
My daughter's an entertainer and her decision
was if I have to sleep in this RV
to make my dream come true, I will.
So, she's done some stuff.
She's been able to do some things like that,
some really great feats because of that,
and so we're out here surviving.
- [Interviewer] But she's also working.
We were talking about her job up in Hollywood.
- She's working two jobs, yes.
- [Interviewer] And she's working two jobs.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] Trying to make her dreams, but it's still...
I mean, my goodness.
This is...
I can't...
I really can't imagine living like this
and you guys really break the stereotypes of homelessness.
I mean, I know there's more and more
working homeless out here.
You guys are working, you're trying,
you just can't afford a place to live.
- Yeah, that's the bottom line and we know we're not alone.
I've kinda kept an eye on what's going on
near Anaheim Stadium.
I think they maybe tallied up about 400 people
that were in tents out there.
They also did a study that said about 40 to 50%
of those people had jobs.
So that means that they were coming out of a tent,
which we have done before, coming out of a tent
and going to work.
I did that.
This is not my first time, in fact.
I did that six years ago, I think.
I was working at a hotel in downtown
and I had a tent in my grandmother's backyard.
That was the best I could do at that time.
- Wow. - Yeah,
so it's an upward climb,
but we do just simply want affordable housing.
We don't want anything fancy,
just what everybody else wants.
- [Interviewer] What's your future like?
- My future is like...
Right now, it's funny because the necessities
is the mother of invention and my daughter and I
have had this, but she's a girl, and it's closing in on us,
so we're either talking about going bigger,
getting something bigger so that we can still
not have to pay this rent.
She's trying to get her credit together
so that she can go into a place without all the hassles
that she had last time, and for me,
the future lies in simply going to work
and hoping that the powers that be understand
what's going on out here and the people that are working
are trying to get affordable housing.
I hope they do build MTA.
I hope they build whatever they need to do,
build something at the MTA.
I hope they build whatever they do
to help whoever needs to be.
I'm not necessarily sleeping on the street, per se,
but it is a big responsibility being here.
This takes money, this takes gas every week to move it.
They make me move it every week.
If they don't, I'm gonna get $100 ticket, at least.
So, food is very expensive, especially on Venice.
So, we're working.
A lot of people think, well if you've got an RV,
you don't have to pay anything.
That's not true.
We go through water.
We buy a lot of water, supplies, medical supplies,
dog food, cat food, et cetera.
- [Interviewer] It's work.
You don't just go to the kitchen and turn on the faucet.
- Yes. - You know?
- An it rained for two days the other day
and I have a couple of leaks up there,
so I had to put up tarps and all that
while I had a hurt hand and all that,
so yeah, it's tough out here.
It's tough.
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes,
what would they be?
- Three wishes.
One, concerning this particular issues,
more attention to it, more serious attention to it.
A personal wish would obviously to be more resources.
More resources is what I need.
I don't necessarily need more money or more cars,
but more resources, more places to do what I needed to do.
I need, in my future, I see myself sitting in a living room,
watching my television, cooking some dinner,
and having some family or friends around
and stuff like that because that's what I'm used to doing.
That's what we all like to do.
Nobody likes to be out here.
Please, don't make that mistake and think
that anybody wants to be out here on the street.
- [Interviewer] All right.
- Three wishes. - I think there
was one more though.
- Yeah, one more wish would be...
I wish people would be more human.
I wish they would just see the people
that are on the street, or anywhere,
and not assume that they're okay
'cause sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they need a hug, sometimes they need resources,
and you never know.
- [Interviewer] Love your neighbor.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would wish that, I would hope that,
that people would pay attention to it.
- [Interviewer] Great wishes.
Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- Thank you.
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