By Bronwyn Carver (Portland, OR)
Trigger warnings: substance use, death.
In May of 2015, after fifteen years of renting the same apartment in Portland, Oregon, raising three daughters, burying beloved family pets, and celebrating all the occasions one celebrates, our landlord informed us that they would be raising the rent. Rent at the time, for a two-bedroom apartment in inner southeast Portland, was $850 a month. My new amount? $1,625. Now, let me state this amount was for an older apartment with the same old carpet that the friends who lived there before my family tread upon, the old cabinets, and hidden black mold. The apartment was not worth the dollar value placed upon it and it was completely out of my husband and I’s price point. I was barely able to make the rent as it was with the money I earned, while also paying some bills and buying food, while my husband covered the remainder. Further, my husband was about to lose his employment and mine was about to be reduced. Still, I refused to give up. We went to court to try to mediate the situation, but the landlord’s eldest son refused to budge on the new amount; hence we agreed to vacate the premises at the beginning of June to avoid an eviction on my record.
We proceeded to sell belongings, pack treasures, heirlooms, and memories, and put everything into the minivan we owned. I was thankful that all my daughters were grown and out of the home by then. Meanwhile, we continued searching for other places to rent. On that journey we could not find anything less than $900 for two hundred square feet! We also had three cats with us and places were requesting pet rent. What? I am sorry but my cats were unemployed and could not pay their own additional rent. I informed one complex we looked at that this was a major problem, as they wanted an additional $150 in said pet rent.
It became apparent very quickly that something had changed in the housing market. At this point my husband and I thought we would just live in the van. It seemed logical so we rented a storage space for the belongings we moved into the van and started what would become a nine-year odyssey into homelessness.
The first winter was one of the coldest. One night, we parked in Northwest Portland near an underpass. We crawled into bed under every cover we owned, tucked in the three cats, and kissed each other, telling each other we loved the other, and went to sleep not sure we would wake up in the morning. There was so much we learned that first year, including how to stay warm. Then, as addicts tend to do in stressful situations, we relapsed.
We camped in the van for two years, until the tags expired. With no money to buy new tags, the city towed the van. Setting up a tent and camping in far-seeing places became the norm. It is hard to put into words the nuances of homelessness. The constant threat of possessions being stolen by other homeless people or being swept every few weeks and your possessions being stolen again. We lost the storage unit and left belongings throughout the Portland metro area like breadcrumbs trying to make our way back to some remembrance of home. We tried to live a “normal” life. I tried to make the tent into a home. Meanwhile my husband cared for the outside, keeping clean our slice of dirt.
There are too many stories for the space given. We continued to live this way, using to cope with this experience for almost seven years, until my husband moved in with another person. I endured this. I endured, moved into another camp away from his, worked, remembered who I was, and gradually gained insight and strength. I still saw my husband—we had been together too long to just stop. He was arrested and while in custody got sober and we spoke again about being together. He was released to a drug program. I went back on methadone because I did not want to be the reason for his relapse upon release.
And, as addicts do, after one month he left treatment, came home, and got high. He was home one week. ONE WEEK. I went to work, kissed him goodbye, and got a call while getting off the light rail to tell me that he was not breathing. He had overdosed.
Brian passed away at the age of 44, September 3, 2022. We had been together 21 years. I relapsed, as addicts do when we are facing life challenges we haven’t been shown how to weather. I remained homeless another two years, knowing the person who had my back and protected me was lost from this mortal coil never to return.
In November 2023, I was informed by one of the volunteers that came into the camps with supplies that Section 8 would be running a lottery for 2,000 vouchers. I was driven down to the place where I could put in an application on the last day. In December I went back on methadone with every conviction that if I was awarded a voucher, I would need to be sober to afford living inside. In December I received my award letter, first saying I was waitlisted, then the week after with the voucher. I had until February 2024 to use the voucher. In a whirlwind of sobriety and searching I did find an apartment, on my terms, where I wanted to live, with my cats who became certified emotional support animals.
However, Section 8 covers rent only. I would still have to cover any deposits and fees. I crowdfunded twice to make the deposit, since there was an unexpected amount additionally requested to hold the apartment that would then be used as a credit. But I did it and moved into the one-bedroom unit with my cats in February 2024. I have lived here seventeen months. I have planted outside, grown a garden, furnished my home, and am thankful I have it. I pay my bills, and I am catching up on taxes. I remain sober and have gotten medical procedures that needed to be done but that I was unable to access without housing. I have a door that locks with water to clean my body and refresh my soul. I feel more human.
Fast forward to today, August 11, 2025, and I am again facing the real possibility of losing this security. I am in the position of using up my voucher in the next seven months as this Administration has concluded that those who are poor or formerly homeless have only two years in which they can utilize the Section 8 HUD voucher program. To say that it was never intended to be a long-term form of assistance is rewriting the language and intent of this most-needed social program. It is scary enough to think I may lose my medical insurance through Medicaid—or that I may have to eat perhaps once a day should I lose food assistance—but to punish me by taking away my housing, as a sixty-year-old, seventeen-month-housed, formally nine-years-homeless woman, seems to be a cruel joke. A reality of security and loss to others receiving this assistance, single mothers, fathers, those out of foster care, those with disabled children, how in the truest sense of decent judgment does one believe this will force those to seek greater employment? The truth is most work some sort of job. You still need to pay for partial rents, or utilities, transportation costs, etc.
To rent a place in today’s market is a herculean task that is unrealistic for many of those who receive HUD assistance. This is why we are on this program, one that houses just a fraction of those who also are entitled to be housed.
I am appalled at the lack of compassion toward human beings—those who have lived a life of poverty—decent people trying to navigate a world that has shut them out all their lives, even when they have tried. And now, this impending doom is a disaster for so many, it will swell the homeless population with some of whom may have never been homeless, children living on the streets, elderly, those who have mental health concerns—all stand to lose the security housing provides.
As of me writing this article, I am unable to pay rent. I work part time as a vendor of Street Roots; a street paper sold in Portland. I write, am a speaker when requested, and participate where I can earn enough money to cover the difference in my bills. But, to tell me that I would need to pay the full rent on my apartment at $1,039 would be a real stretch for me. I have ongoing health and mental health issues. I am still in therapy for the trauma of living outside. Besides, who would hire a sixty-year-old woman, with no job history for the last ten years?
Existential dread is real for me—I do not wish to live outside again. I am unable to maintain my sobriety, mental health, physical well-being, possessions, or hygiene. I am unwilling to trade my locked door for the flap of a tent door once more.
There are times, though, when I mourn the apartment where my daughters grew up. I miss the color of the living room and how warm and inviting it looked from outside the window. I reminisce about celebrating the highs and getting through the lows together.