Chasing Stability: The struggle for a home in Oakland

Man, I’ve always felt displaced. I feel like I’m a displaced rose.

It’s always been hard making friends and moving around a lot was hard. Every school I went to I was alone. I got to see kids be really close to where they were sleeping over at each other’s houses, making plans on weekends, sharing lunches, just enjoying each other’s company. See, but those types of friendships were friendships where they were friends for years, but I never got to experience that because I moved a lot. People felt abandoned and so they moved on. Only reason I know they felt abandoned is because I’ve always been abandoned so I know how it would feel. It feels lonely and feels like no one cares about you because if they did they wouldn’t be leaving you right?

I’ve always just wanted to be a part of something, but I never felt like I truly belonged anywhere. I was always an outcast.

*Growing up this is the kind of connection and brotherhood I wanted with kids my age.*

I could say I’ve lived in about every part of Oakland, from the east to the west to the deep of Oakland, from the 20s, to the 30s, to the 80s, to the 90s. It was hard getting approved for a house or an apartment. The first thing owners look at is your background and my mom’s background was okay but then they look at who else lives in the house and automatically reject us because some family members have a record from doing things when they were younger. Another thing they look for is credit and neither of my parents ever had good credit. My mom had my sister at 18 and me at 19 and then she would have 7 more later on. She is now 33 but she was never educated on credit nor did she think it would impact her. But it does and though now she’s getting her credit together it is hard.

*Me and my mom. No matter the pain she consumed, her smile always managed to shine as bright as the moon.*

There were nights we had to sleep in our cars. There were years we would have to squeeze together with family. I imagined it like we were traveling the world though we were just traveling the city of Oakland. We would get turned away a lot and I hated to see the look on my mom’s face when she wouldn’t get approved. She would stress and would cry to my father about what we would do and where we would go. It was always like that. It was a pattern, we would get a house stay a year or two, get pushed out and then it would start again. And by being pushed out I mean either the landlord would raise rent or the property would get sold and the new owners would raise the rent.

A few years back, Homies Empowerment, community members, my family and I gave back to our unhoused community – we went to an unhoused encampment and this is how it looked. A lot of these people were here because rent kept rising so much that their normal 9-5s weren’t enough to sustain housing.

On some occasions we moved because it just wasn’t safe. We have been robbed and our house has been shot at or caught in the crossfire. Of course for our safety we would leave. We’d move in with family an hour away but it was a back and forth because of tragic family deaths or issues with our family we were living with there.

Moving around would embarrass me a lot because the friends I did have at the time would ask to come over and sometimes they couldn’t because of my housing situation. I didn’t know how to tell them that they couldn’t come over because my house at the time was my car. I would have to make up things like “my family has the flu” or “my parents are working on our house fixing it up.” It affected my friendships with many and it still affects me to this day because I still don’t really have those friends or people to go to when I’m feeling stressed out. I don’t have no one to confide in. I’ve always just had me, myself and I.

Moving back and forth our car looked just like this. We didn’t have money to pay for moving companies so we took our necessities and squished them all together. Our lives were packed in the back of our car and this is how it was for us everywhere.

Being lonely wasn’t all that bad. It gave me time to focus on myself and have some self-acceptance. I’ve always based myself on what other people say and think. I was a follower trying to be popular, denying myself of my true identity and being alone gave me a chance to find myself. Something that I did make sure was that my grades were always between As and Bs, that I finished my projects and other school work. My mind is set: I will get a full ride scholarship and pull myself and my family out of poverty and we will not have to worry about landlords raising rent. We will have the financial freedom to live and be happy. People say “Money can’t buy happiness” but if money is the key for my mom not to worry and cry and fight with my dad, that would make me happy. It will make my siblings happy because my mom wouldn’t have to work so hard and my dad wouldn’t have to work so hard and could actually make time for me and my siblings. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness must’ve never gone through my struggles.

My dream is to be a lawyer, graduate and hopefully build an apartment complex where my community of Oakland can live comfortably.I will provide stable and affordable housing so future generations won’t have to feel that displacement I’ve felt throughout my childhood – so their parents won’t have to stress and work extra jobs and can actually focus on raising their kid or kids.It’s a longshot because people like me don’t really make it but I’m willing to try for my community and for my younger siblings and future kids. All I know is that I’m ready to fight back against the higher power that’s targeting our families. I’m ready to stop this generational curse that’s affecting me and that will affect our future family if we as a community don’t stop it. Yes I’m just a youth and yes many of my readers are youth but remember we are our family’s hope to end this war that society is waging on us. We have more privilege than our ancestors had. They fought for our place here in the US and I’m not going to let their sacrifices go unnoticed.