Help [stop eviction]

Hello,

My name is Laura L. Gamari. I have lived in a low income studio apartment owned by Innovative Housing Inc. since 2015. A decade.

It is currently managed by Pilina Inc. Previous management has been Income Property Management and Pinehurst Management. Together the property management and resident services sides of the building have the expressed purpose of keeping vulnerable people housed - or they did since I moved in. Right now they've been trying to evict me.

Management was more or less the same from 2015 until 2020. Since 2020 we've had so many different people work here I can't keep track, and at some point the keys to the building and rooms were stolen. It has felt like the building was abandoned. I have been isolated inside my unit and under duress. It has felt like fighting every single day for four years to just live in my space and survive through the day. For me this has been a kind of torture. 

I have truly starved at times in the last four years, going up to 10 days without food. My body hurts and I don't think I could withstand doing that again. I have suffered through without medicine. It was worse when I didn't even have earplugs. I need to wear earplugs 24/7 now. I shouldn't have to keep sharing my medical history to prove I was right to be worried about COVID. 

I'm just poor or so many more solutions would have been possible. 

Between the war zone atmosphere of 2020 and the fallout that followed it - everything on this street felt like some kind of psych op that had nothing to do with the spirit of the protests - I have felt like I'm fighting to keep my home and life every single day. 

To add insult to injury, it doesn't seem like anyone cares and they are quick to dismiss me. 

If they evict me into homelessness, and I survive without getting sick or hurt which seems all too likely after four years of isolation, this is the kind of housing they would use to rehouse me. It makes no sense to displace me. It's just wrong. 

The first eviction had nothing to do with the rent and went through court proceedings where I ended up signing an agreement under duress. I frankly feel it was unnecessary to do to me and the initial claims were bogus to begin with. They inspected my apartment and changed my lock. They said they would help me fulfill terms of the agreement we signed but never did - I was put in a difficult and forced position that was physically exhausting when they could have easily helped. Again, they said they would help and didn't. They've disregarded the reasons why I couldn't leave my unit in the first place. Part of the agreement was that they investigate issues of harassment but they have just blown me off. 

It feels like the building dropped the ball in a myriad of ways and potentially just wants to make their issues easy on themselves. They don't seem to care if I end up dying or become homeless in the process. Threatening me with eviction isn't right either. They "waited" months to push for the rent. I don't see why they can't just wait for the assistance programs then too. They should have been helping me all along in the first place and weren't, as if they've just been waiting for me to get to some unfixable point.

They weren't giving me notices about rent for months to the point I thought they must have found an assistance program for me. Helping residents is part of what this building does and previous management has done similar things like get me linked up with rent assistance as well as cleaning supplies, bus passes, and other necessities in the past.

I have a letter of accommodation from my therapist and am applying for disability. They've disregarded that as well. 

Right now I can't even use the rent portal online, so I can't contact organizations and ask for help by giving them the login information - which I have done in the past. Management hasn't responded when asked directly on email where exactly I should have someone send rental assistance if I found anyone to help me. The address they've given for the HRSN program was different from the office downstairs - I found that out when I was contacted by CareOregon to finish the paperwork. I don't feel helped by the current management at all and I'm worried they're just trying to find ways to sabotage any potential of me staying housed. They said repeatedly there was a 6 month wait for the HRSN program - which was blatantly untrue. They have also indicated past paperwork wasn't filed properly and said nothing when I sent emails showing it was done. 

They gave me a 30 day notice in November.

They wanted all the back rent plus late fees (which they inexplicably refuse to waive though that's been standard practice) on December 18th (yesterday). They have said they would give me a 10 day notice if I couldn't pay and then I would have to make some kind of payment plan with the court. Nothing I do seems to shift their stance on the subject in a way that feels inhumane and violates human rights. I have been isolated under exceptional circumstances and they are seeking to arbitrarily deny me of my home and what little I have. 

Going through a 10 day notice and court plan should give me a little more time but, while I invested everything in the potential to work online, I haven't secured a remote position yet. Right now the power supply for my laptop is broken and I only have my phone, limiting my options even more. I have a bachelor's degree in writing, but these circumstances made writing impossible for me. It has been hard to function and every day I'm just in survival mode. 

I have applied for social security disability.

Even if I sold everything I own, it wouldn't amount to what is due. I can't afford to do the laundry all at once and have had to wash items by hand since the pandemic started. 

Even after I provided a letter of accommodation from my therapist, the response from resident services was that they're still going to evict me and she wanted me to sign an ROI for the HRSN program - which is unnecessary as I completed the application myself and talked to CareOregon directly on the phone - I think she just wants it to look like she "tried" to help as if I was just being difficult which isn't true. Management has never needed an ROI to help me get rent assistance in the past either. Both the property management and resident services coordinator have tried repeatedly to make me sign an ROI for them at this point. Something is wrong here.

How they can expect $5,000 suddenly from someone who they know is poor and has been isolated since COVID shut downs and applying for disability while being harassed is worse than absurd to me. It's cruel. Again, the purpose of the building is to help vulnerable people.

I have no other home and this has been the only home I've ever really had. I could explain I think there's been a real estate scam going on, but that might make this too long. 

I will say there were people - including someone who lived in the building at the time, though I don't know if he still does - outside on the street yelling "get out go home" in 2020. Other people who live or lived here have directly been abusing me as well - they would bang on my walls from next door and upstairs in such a way it felt like I was being beaten up. No exaggeration.

It's been four years of abusive levels of sound from various non-musical sources outside, though I'm told nothing can be done about it - weaponized LRAD type low frequency bass that doesn't have a rhythm so it's not from music, motorcycles, sirens buzzing the building, garbage trucks - smashing glass or banging empty bins - all these things were not "just part of the soundscape". 

It has felt like what people call gangstalking. 

I have a ton of different videos and recordings but it makes more sense for someone who knew what it was like before 2020 compared to now. 

Plus the "gassing" of the unit so much it's hard to breathe by everything from chemical smells to burning rubber. 

Being followed out of my unit by a neighbor in January and having someone always in the hallway when I would open the door to get my groceries prevented me from leaving the unit at all for a solid year. I have not left the building itself in four years. Another neighbor pushed himself in to my unit at one point. Someone got into the building and pushed me bodily into a wall downstairs and said "no one is coming to save you". 

Finally, the fire alarm for the whole building has gone off nearly 40 times without any explanation just in the last four years. Whatever this is, it has been cruel.

The long and short of it is that I've been isolated inside due to medical concerns since COVID and then it seems unknown persons took advantage of that to terrorize anyone within earshot or who "isn't in on the joke". You could maybe see it as a slow clearing out of the area and I'm just still here. Over 20,000 people left Portland since 2020 - I wonder why. 7 million are dead from COVID and still dying every day, we just don't talk about it anymore. 

I had PTSD before 2020 and this situation has just made it worse and more complex. I cannot simply return to life as it used to be and I need help to survive.  

I don't want to leave. I just want my home. It's all I have. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, stipulated 75 years ago that housing - as well as healthcare, food, and clothing -  is a human right. It also says one should not be tortured, enslaved, or arbitrarily denied their property, among 30 other rights that appear to be ignored to the detriment of us all.

Can you please help me keep my housing?

-L.