It’s been more than six months since Paula Silva and her family have had a home. All six members of her family are currently staying at a family shelter in Barrio Logan.
Karla Gomez and her 14-year-old son have exhausted their supply of couches to surf at friends’ homes. Now they sleep in a tent at Imperial Beach and shower at the gym.
Mike Rios was fortunate enough to find a small bedroom to rent for him and his dog in a house in Chula Vista. But it’s been a challenge sharing a bathroom and kitchen while he recovers from spinal surgery.
Like thousands of San Diegans, all three families were forced from their homes by the January floods. Hundreds have since been able to rebuild and return. But these three — who all lived in the same apartment complex on National Avenue until Jan. 22 — haven’t been as lucky.
They’re among at least 11 families in the complex who were displaced by the flood. Nearly all want to move back into their apartments once they’re rebuilt — and technically can, since they’re officially still tenants — but they have no idea when their homes will be ready for them.
At least nine of those families have been struggling to find an alternative, either getting housing applications denied left and right or simply unable to find other homes they can afford.
Hundreds of tenants across San Diego are still in similar situations, at the mercy of their landlords in their efforts to get local financial assistance after their homes were destroyed — and many are becoming homeless because of it.
The county gave the San Diego Housing Commission $4.2 million to create a program to help eligible landlords and tenants find new homes or restore their homes, with specific parameters on how the money could be disbursed. But many have had trouble getting assistance. Just 50 families have gotten any financial aid at all — one-tenth of the total who have applied.
To get aid, they have to provide numerous documents — including their new lease, any applicable federal aid award letters, W-9, direct deposit authorization and their landlord’s contact information — and a confirmed move-in date to verify the residency and calculate the financial award amount.
That’s not all. The Housing Commission also requires their landlords to provide more information to validate their tenancy and homeownership.
The lengthy verification process has created barriers for tenants whose aid hinges on their ability to supply all the necessary paperwork — and on their landlords’ cooperation.
Silva says her landlord hasn’t been responding at all. “I think he blocked us,” she said. “And the apartment is not even ready yet.”
The Housing Commission says that situation is rare, without specifying how many similar scenarios it’s seen.
“While we have encountered landlords delaying responses and delivery of verifications to SDHC, it is not common for landlords working with the families to lease a new unit or resume occupancy in their former home to refuse to participate,” said Azucena Valladolid, its executive vice president of rental assistance and workforce development.
More than 300 households hit hard by flooding were still participating in the county’s temporary hotel voucher program when it ended on June 21 — most of them from the city of San Diego, where the flooding inflicted the worst damage.
After families lost their hotel vouchers, about two dozen relied on the support of community organizations that paid to extend their stays a few more days. Many figured out places to go, but a handful were left with no choice but to join the waiting list for a shelter.
That’s when community organizations stepped in to help. The San Diego Foundation gave the Harvey Family Foundation a grant to house 33 families for four extra nights, and then Alliance San Diego helped extend stays for 15 families until June 29.
On the chaotic day the hotel voucher program ended, flood victims sat devastated — many crying in hotel lobbies with nowhere to go — as community advocates worked to triage each family’s situation.
“Community advocates were doing everything they could to try to stop a catastrophe from happening,” recalls Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego. “It was emotionally heart-wrenching to be talking to these families week in and week out and watch as they struggled to find answers.”
Each day since, more are ending up on the street, said Armon Harvey, founder of the Harvey Family Foundation.
Community advocates met with the Housing Commission this week to address what they say are the program’s shortcomings. They’re hopeful that changes will be made.
The Housing Commission says it has tried to reach all 356 households that were part of the county’s program as of May 23 and therefore eligible for local aid. Of the 204 families they successfully connected with, 133 said they were in permanent or temporary stable housing.
But that still left the commission with many other families needing its help.
As of Wednesday, 50 households had been referred to homeless shelters — but only five families and two single adults had been placed in them. Twenty-two families and three single adults had declined shelter placements. And 11 households still haven’t been placed due to a lack of available beds or units, the Housing Commission says.
Elmer Pineda and their daughter Maria Pineda rush to check out of a hotel in El Cajon after their housing voucher expired. The family and their two dogs were relocating to a shelter in San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)" width="4200" />
Strapped for cash, Silva, her husband, Elmer Piñeda, and their 17-year-old daughter, Maria, were planning on sleeping in their cars with their two dogs while they waited for a shelter spot. But the brutal summer heat forced them to rent a room in a Motel 6 in El Cajon for a couple of days.
It was only 30 minutes before their checkout that they learned they had finally been accepted into a family shelter.
“They just barely called us. Otherwise, we were going to go sleep in our cars,” Silva said, emotional as she packed up their belongings on July 2. Her oldest daughter, who had also been staying with them with her 7-month-old and 4-year-old, is staying at the same shelter.
Gomez is among the families still waiting to be placed in a shelter. After more than a month on the waiting list, she has become increasingly frustrated to hear of her neighbors getting beds.
Her 18-year-old son went to live with his father in Tijuana after the floods. But she and her younger son are still sleeping in their tent, waiting for a home.
It isn’t the life she wants for him. “I don’t want him to see all of this,” Gomez said in Spanish.
After the floods destroyed their homes, their landlord had offered them their security deposit back if they agreed to end their lease early and move out, the tenants explained. Most declined the offer, preferring to keep their relatively affordable rent — whenever they might be able to start paying it again.
“I shouldn’t be displaced to another part of town because of a disaster,” Rios said. “I didn’t want to move somewhere that’s way more expensive and struggle more than what we are already struggling in San Diego.”
Silva and Piñeda worried about whether they could even secure a new home; they have an eviction on their record and don’t have good credit. “It took us so long to find that apartment,” she said.
As a recent immigrant from Mexico who had been working on gaining citizenship for the last two years, Gomez knew she couldn’t take the offer; she was still working to establish her credit and rental history.
But earlier this month, she decided to throw in the towel and met with her landlord to get her rent and deposit back so she would have money in the bank and hopefully get an application for another home approved.
“I’m very sad,” Gomez said. “I had already struggled in life, but now this is just complicating everything. I never thought I’d be in a situation like this.”
Five tenants told the Union-Tribune their landlord has refused to cooperate with the Housing Commission to sign the forms they would need completed in order to get financial assistance.
Kai Najmi, the landlord, declined to comment on his dealings with his tenants or the commission. “It’s a major nightmare,” he said of the floods’ aftermath. “The problem was entirely caused by the city of San Diego’s negligence.”
The commission said only one of the nine families in the complex who applied for financial help had reported that the landlord had been unresponsive.
“Our engagement with the nine families indicates they are seeking new housing and do not intend to resume occupancy at their former homes,” Valladolid said. “We do not have details about why they are not planning to return to their previous units or any issues with the landlord.”
On a recent visit back to his apartment, Rios said he saw drywall and insulation lying on the floor. “So I’m thinking they might start working on my unit soon,” he said.
Otherwise, he’s in the dark. When he has asked Najmi for updates, he’s been told, “‘Wait until it’s ready,’” Rios recalls. “He just seems like he’s not willing to work with anybody or help anybody.”
Other tenants say their aid applications have been put on a waitlist, as the Housing Commission is prioritizing flood people who were ineligible for federal aid. When they are later approved, their financial aid rewards may be reduced to avoid duplication of assistance, according to the commission.
As of Wednesday, the commission had received 500 applications for financial assistance. Fewer than half of those had been deemed eligible.
The commission has paid out more than $268,000 to a total of 50 families — including rent subsidies for 33, landlord incentives or security deposit payments for 31 and hotel expenses and moving costs for 41.
An additional 128 families have received preapprovals, but 13 of those still need more documentation before they can be paid, the commission says. Five applications are still pending review.
The Housing Commission accepts aid applications through Aug. 31. Eligible applicants must secure housing by Sept. 30.
Tenants have been more susceptible to the program’s barriers, but some landlords say they have also struggled to get the help they need.
Among them is Virginia López, who says she worked hard to build up her six-unit apartment complex and neighboring home in Jamacha.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, because I’m out of money,” López said in Spanish. “This is the last month that I can pay my mortgage … And it’s not me who is affected, it’s all my tenants.”
She’s been waiting nearly three weeks for the commission to approve her aid application so she can finish work on some of her units and let her tenants move back in.
Without the funding, López hasn’t been able to give them a move-in date — which means they can’t yet get approved for financial assistance, either.
And although most of them are eager to return once repair work is done, López has one unit that’s empty. She would like to rent it to another flood victim, but the Housing Commission hasn’t been able to help her find someone.
The Housing Commission says it is continuing to help flood-affected families with their housing search and has provided them with more than 1,200 leads to date.
In the meantime, families are scrambling to find someplace to stay even as they struggle with the aftermath of what Piñeda acknowledges was a “traumatic” Jan. 22.
“That was the day my whole world crumbled,” he says.
He has since lost his job as a longshoreman. Silva had to leave one of her two jobs. And their daughter Maria has struggled to keep up with high school. She planned to attend summer school to stay on track but had to drop out after struggling to keep up as the family moved hotels.
But they’re hopeful.
“We’re trying to recover, step by step,” Silva says.
