- [Videographer] Eddie and Constance.
- Sure is.
- [Videographer] We're here in the Valley
I don't even know where
- We are in Receda.
- [Videographer] Receda
and you guys are homeless.
There's a VW bug
parked right next to me
where one of you sleeps
and the other one is in project room key.
- Yeah.
- [Videographer] Tell me about homelessness.
- Oh man, it's everything.
I, you know,
we've literally survived a lot of conditions.
You know,
I've lived in the bamboo
and then in the basin,
everywhere in the basin,
You know, off the freeways.
It's a lot of, you know.
Homeless,
would you say anarchy living,
apocalyptic living,
it gets rigorous.
- Nobody wants you out here that's for sure.
- You know, your a liability for sure.
- Community doesn't want you out here.
- [Videographer] Well you guys don't want to be out here.
- We don't want to be out here
and you know, trying to get anywhere off the streets,
once you're out here
it's really hard to get back off the streets.
Project room key was a great help for,
like yup.
Unfortunately, I don't think they could house
as many people as they took on to,
You know, give rooms to.
Or at least not in the timeframe they had.
I'm still over there at the, Super8
hoping that I will find housing,
but I've been out here with Ed
Cause he's not housed anymore with a room.
So I've stayed out here for a day or two
go back and check in.
I haven't been there much.
It's tough
We don't want to end up back out here.
Cause three years was more than enough
of living in rainstorms,
torrential, rain and cold
and all that awful hunger
and freezing and not really being welcome anywhere.
Trying to use a bathroom,
forget about it,
anything like that,
trying to stay clean,
it's just really hard.
Getting robbed all the time
for everything we have.
Getting ripped off left and right, yeah.
- [Videographer] Take a little bit this way,
the sun's not working with us
- It's moving?
(laughing)
- [Videographer] You're fine.
So Ed, you were saying,
you slept outside so much
when you finally got into a hotel room with a bed,
it took you a while to get used to it.
- Yeah, it took me a minute.
I mean it was like,
I couldn't believe,
I have nothing really bad
to say about project room key.
I was astounded,
it was a jaw dropping experience.
The five-star room executive type suite
and i was like,
and I literally could not sleep
like, laying down for a while.
It took me a while.
You know, whatever, I guess that's weird,
- [Videographer] So they put you in a nice place?
- Yeah, it was, they were very
accommodations were four or five star.
- They fed us three times a day.
- The food was good.
- You know, they did what they had to do
for the COVID and, yeah.
- [Videographer] And for those that don't know
project room key is
is a California program
to help you guys that were living,
cause you were in a tent before that?
- Right.
- If we had one
and it didn't get stolen.
- So you were a, you were in a tent
and then they put you in a hotel
to help keep you
from catching COVID.
- Right, correct. We were actually behind
off of Burbank in the 405
behind where there's best Western there and a target.
I think there's a coin place right there.
We were behind the the coin place,
You know we had a compound
there was a lot of people
it was,
after you get so many people
in a situation like that
it really becomes a liability in the community.
And it's not good
You know, it's a good thing the housed us.
And now we're back in the same situation
and it's happened to a lot of people
I don't know.
We're back in the same situation I guess.
I don't know, who can I blame?
- Yeah. It's still there until what?
January 31st it ends?
Is that when it's ending?
- [Videographer] I dunno,
let's hope it because COVID is getting
- Worse
- [Videographer] Worse. Let's hope they extend it
or better yet find you guys housing.
Cause then they housed both of you.
- Yeah. That would be wonderful
- I would be willing for a shelter right now, anything,
but I could survive out here its okay.
- [Videographer] Well you guys have been together
as a couple for 12 years
- Correct, that's right. - Yeah.
- [Videographer] and it's hard to be separated.
- Yeah, it is.
- and the sector separates you guys,
- Yeah.
- [Videographer] Which is crazy,
- Yeah.
I tried to bring him into the room one night
and they flipped out
like I was committing
a capital murder or something.
They were like "you get down here right now!"
I'm like man it's freezing out.
It's 3:00 AM.
He needs a place to sleep
It was the first night.
And I was like,
"he needs a place to be out of this weather
until he can get some blankets"
cause he wasn't able to go back
and get any clothes or blankets
or anything from his room.
They packed all his stuff up,
which we have yet to go get
cause we needed to secure a place to put it
and money is a big object.
- [Videographer] So that was one of the big issues
is going into project room key.
You got to leave a lot of your stuff.
- Well, yeah, the stuff that we used to camp
it wasn't really much of a loss.
I hope that most of it went to somebody that could use it.
I actually packed, I had a whole 'nother camp set up
that I packed up in the bushes
and gave it to some guy.
I don't know who it was,
but you know, whatever,
- we acquired a lot of stuff. - We can acquire this,
we can acquire this stuff again.
it's just, you know,
you become a liability.
That's the bad part you know, of being out here.
- [Videographer] So what now?
- I mean, trying to get housed over here
at the Canoga site.
And hopefully if I can get housed,
bring Ed in to the housing that I have and Clutch
- [Videographer] Yeah, your pup.
- There he is.
We've had him 10 years.
So he's not going anywhere.
We're used to, like I said
we lived in a building for 10 years.
We paid our rent every month.
Everything was cool.
Someone sold on us and bam
we were out here just like that, that quick.
So that was culture shock.
- [Videographer] So we talked about this earlier,
you were in a commercial building
that wasn't supposed to be there
even though you're paying somebody,
- Yeah.
- [Videographer] And you got evicted,
and you were there for 10 years,
and that's what caused your homelessness.
- Yeah. That's how he ended up out here.
So it wasn't from lack of paying our rent or bills
We did that every month faithfully,
but once 10 years went by
- 8 years?
- It was 10.
It was nine going on 10
after that many years go by
paying the same amount of rent every month
and then get out here and find out
how much rents went up to,
Oh my God!
And then putting all our stuff in a storage,
it was 600 and some dollars a month paying that,
which I was doing.
But it kind of puts you in a situation
where it's next to impossible
to get a place
when you're putting that much money out on storage.
And you're living at it's really expensive to be homeless.
People think it's not expensive,
its very expensive
because people steal your stuff every day
- [Videographer] And you don't have refrigeration.
- No.
- [Videographer] So you have to buy food every day
- You have to buy food every day,
people steal your hygiene's constantly.
- Put it this way, there's lot of stealing going on.
- A lot of stealing going on,
- on both sides.
- And We don't steal.
So I don't, I'm not okay with that.
Yeah. We don't, I don't,
I don't know how would you looking at me like that for?
cause I don't steal.
- Me neither.
- What are you talking about?
Clutch come here!
- It's a good thing to,
- you know, I get replacing the same stuff
over and over and over, it's maddening.
I can never go get any further
because I'm buying a cell phone again,
or the same hygiene's again,
or the same
- The one thing that bothers me most
about the air tells me she moved out
they moved around the other side of town.
She lost half of everything she owned,
and that was some expensive stuff.
Just disappeared.
- It was all my brand new stuff
I just bought
I lost it, and nobody would look for it.
They said, I took it.
I said, no, I don't have it.
- They told me you would find the stuff in the stairwells.
So I don't know what was going on
- I don't know what happened if security took it.
- [Videographer] So, if you don't mind me asking,
how many years young are you guys?
- I'm 57.
- I'm 60.
- [Videographer] and this is your retirement?
- Yeah, sort of, yeah.
You know, I got bad hip
so I'm not doing much,
I could I don't,
I don't know, I don't know what I'm gonna do really.
To tell you the truth.
- [Videographer] If you had three wishes,
what would they be?
- Oh god,
- I guess it would be, well,
I'll always live happily ever after.
And for everybody we know
that's been out here struggling,
that deserves it
to have the same
and um,
for the world to go back to the way it used to be.
- [Videographer] Yeah, it's crazy right now.
Ed had any wishes?
- No, that's about right.
- [Videographer] Okay.
Well thank you very much for talking to me.
- Okay. No problem.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for having us.
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