When the rent on Paula Beal's one-bedroom apartment went up $230 a month, there was no way she could afford to stay. The Oakland senior's monthly income from Social Security and disability insurance is less than $900. Even with a roommate, she couldn't swing $1,080 and still have enough left for food, transportation and her medications.
So, in early March, Beal gave away most of her possessions, put what was left in storage and gave her landlord back the keys. She's been searching for a place to live ever since.
It's no secret that low- and middle-income renters in Oakland are being priced out in the midst of a full-blown East Bay housing crisis. What makes Beal's story unusual is that she is a longtime community housing advocate for low-income renters who now finds herself in the same desperate situation as many of the people she's tried to help over the years.
Oakland has quickly become the third most expensive rental market in the country. A one-bedroom apartment averages twice the amount of the higher rent at Beal's old East Lake apartment. She is officially homeless and would be on the street or in a shelter were it not for the kindness of friends.
"It's strange and very painful," Beal said during an interview at a friend's one-bedroom apartment in downtown Oakland, where she has been living for a little over a week. "But it's made me even more passionate. I don't want anyone to go through this misery."
Beal reflects the growing displacement of older people, not just in Oakland but countywide.
"The housing situation for low-income seniors is critical," says Tracy Jensen, senior services coordinator in Oakland's Human Services Department.
Jensen said Oakland applied for a $100,000 emergency grant from the SCAN Foundation in late 2013 to help the increasing number of seniors in the city who couldn't pay their rent and were at risk of losing their homes. The grant covered overdue rent, deposits for new housing, utility bills, dental and other medical costs. But those funds, Jensen said, have since run out.
Beal, an Illinois native, has made her life in Oakland for the past 45 years. For much of that time, she has been a community activist. Beal is a member of Causa Justa, Just Cause, one of the grass-roots organizations behind the Renters Upgrade initiative the activists hope to get on the November ballot. If approved, the measure would extend rent control protections to cover thousands more Oakland rentals, strengthen enforcement of rent control laws and put a 5 percent cap on rent increases, among other provisions.
That fight has taken on a new sense of urgency for Beal now that she has joined the swelling ranks of those who have lost their homes because they can't afford higher rents.
Beal said her son, his wife and their four children were evicted from their apartment and now live in a homeless shelter in Santa Rosa. Of her seven children, 27 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren, she is the only family member left in Oakland.
Beal's friend graciously gave the older woman the bedroom, while she sleeps on the couch. Beal, who recently underwent treatment for breast cancer and takes diabetes medication, said she's been hospitalized twice since she lost her apartment.
She has been putting in rental applications all over the East Bay for affordable senior housing.
Beal visited the TRUST clinic in Oakland, which provides housing assistance to people in Alameda County who are homeless. They gave her information about rentals in Fremont and Union City.
A friend suggested she investigate Stockton.
"These places are so far, and I don't have a car," Beal said. "Everything I love and cherish is here in Oakland."
She hopes to stay with her friend -- her third pit stop -- until she secures permanent lodging.
Yet Beal's tenuous housing situation hasn't dampened her activism.
She's part of a coalition working to collect 33,000 signatures from Oakland voters by June 1 to get the initiative on the ballot.
She is also part of a group of community leaders and housing rights advocates scheduled to meet with Mayor Libby Schaaf on Thursday in an effort to enlist her support for the ballot measure.
"I think about the people who have already been displaced and the people who are being displaced," Beal said. "I at least have people helping me, but what about those who don't have support or whose support has worn thin?"