I was living with the father of my daughters. We managed an apartment complex together. But, when we separated, only he stayed on as the manager. I had to look for another place to live. Rents are extremely high, for one person it’s too much and it took me a long time to find another place. For that reason, we lived together for two years after we were separated.
It was a very toxic environment. I had to grieve our relationship there and that affected my daughters. It was giving me a lot of anxiety, a lot of despair, a lot of stress. He never attacked me, we simply stopped loving each other. It is a very difficult situation, one that can make you sick.
Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions to survive in California, which is very expensive. For example, a two-bedroom apartment is $2,400 or $2,500 per month. With the first month and the deposit, it is about $6,000 to start. It’s not possible because people don’t earn that much. I have two daughters and we didn’t want to live with other people either because of the discomfort and lack of trust of strangers.
I now work as a teacher’s assistant at a preschool in Oakland. I took classes at Merritt College to work there. I also work on Saturdays as a waitress in a restaurant.
Also, when you apply to apartments they ask that your credit be very good and sometimes your credit is not good enough to qualify. Many apartments are small. If you rent a room, they don’t allow you to use the kitchen. And studios only allow two people, which would mean my other daughter would not be able to stay with me.
At this moment, I am on the waiting list for two apartments. For the first, I submitted the application around a year and a half ago and I haven’t heard back. They told me when I applied that the waiting list was two or three years long. It’s been six months since I applied to a low-income apartment that is in the same building where I work: they opened the list there and since I am a teacher at the preschool, teachers are given priority. In the other places I looked, the waiting lists were closed or they were so long.
It’s been a month since I moved. I was given an ultimatum: The landlord of the apartments where I lived with the father of my daughters said “you need to go.” I spoke with him, I asked him to please give me more time. He said that he needed me to leave because my daughters’ father had left the apartment and said “I won’t return until she is gone.” That put pressure on me because I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t.
In the end I made a deal with the landlord and he rented me another place, in another building, at a lower price that I could afford, so that I could leave the property and my daughters’ father would return. We worked this deal out verbally through him and through his assistant, but he didn’t say that this is going to be the price for life or for a year or for six months.
I’m still stressed because my income doesn’t give me enough. With what I earn as a teacher I pay the rent and my car, with what I earn from tips I buy things to eat and really sometimes I say, “I don’t even know how I do it.” But this new place is my “happy place.” This is my new season. I feel good, at peace, and calm.
