The story is becoming more and more common.
A lifelong Hudson County resident, having grown up in relatively inexpensive apartments, loses one of those apartments and then faces the choice of either moving far out of the area – which means switching her kids’ schools and possibly having to buy a car – or staying and becoming homeless.
Helen Ravelo lost her apartment in Jersey City in a fire one week before Christmas of last year. After receiving limited assistance, she had to endure a complete change in her life. She sent her 1- and 2-year-old son and daughter down to Florida to live with her mother-in-law and has not seen them since January. She sent her 8-year-old daughter, Megan, to her first husband’s house in North Brunswick. And she started trying to find a two- or three-bedroom apartment for around the $900 she was paying in Jersey City.
In the meantime, she worked 60 hours a week at a diner in Hoboken and lived in a $210-per-week Single Room Occupancy (SRO) unit in Union City with her husband, who cannot work until he gets his Green Card in six months.
The Union City housing situation ended when school officials in North Brunswick told Ravelo that her 8-year-old was having psychological problems in school related to missing her mother. They gave her a form (which she presented to the Reporter) ordering her daughter to get counseling. Ravelo took her daughter back, but the landlord of the Union City SRO told her that he could be fined for allowing a child to stay there, which Ravelo understood. She had two weeks to find a new place.
She is now living temporarily in a friend’s federally subsidized apartment in the Hoboken Housing Authority projects, but guests are only allowed to stay, by law, in public housing units for 14 days. When Ravelo’s time is up again, she, Megan, and her husband will be homeless. And she still hasn’t seen her two youngest children in seven months.
Her mother told her that her own hours at a supermarket job in Hoboken have been cut, so she can no longer give her some of the assistance she had provided in the past.
Ravelo doesn’t want to move out of Hudson County because she doesn’t have a car. Buying a car and getting insurance would be another great expense.
She said she looked in the cheapest area of Jersey City and a real estate agent told her, "’I don’t want to rent you this apartment.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ She said, ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to survive because it’s a very rough neighborhood. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ Meaning, you’re white and you’re gonna get shot."
Housing exists
For people like Ravelo, what is most frustrating is that there are housing programs for those with low incomes, particularly in Hudson County. But the wait lists for Housing Authority buildings, private moderate-income housing, and federal Section 8 vouchers – which help low-income people pay for their rents – are long. When people become homeless, they are supposed to move to the top of those wait lists.
So far, this has not happened for Ravelo.
After her apartment burned on Dec. 20, 2001, she went to the Red Cross in Jersey City. They gave her vouchers for food and a voucher for clothing at K-Mart, and she stayed with a friend in public housing in West New York. After prompting from a City Hall aide in Jersey City, the Red Cross also promised her an $850 security/deposit voucher if she could find a suitable apartment for that amount. But as yet, she has not been able to.
Ravelo applied for public housing in Jersey City and actually got a letter in the mail (which she showed the Reporter) from one Jersey City Housing Authority complex saying that her $350 to $400-per-week income from her waitressing job in Hoboken was "too low" for their public housing.
It was then that she moved into the furnished room in Union City. She said that Union City Mayor Brian Stack was surprised that she hadn’t gotten more help in Jersey City, and Stack tried to help her find a place in Union City, but Union City has been housing its own victims of several devastating fires that happened there in December.
Stack referred Ravelo to Hoboken, where she was working.
In Hoboken, Ravelo spoke with Sandra Ramos in Constituent Affairs, as well as Carmelo Garcia, the director of Human Services. She said that they promised to help a month ago, and may still be trying, but she has been unable to reach them since then.
"That was like a month ago," she said. "Now it’s worse. Now I’m actually in the street with my kid."
She said she went to an appointment scheduled at the Hoboken Housing Authority with the executive director, but only ended up meeting with his secretary, who told her there weren’t apartments available for her.
HHA Executive Director Troy Washington said Friday that one has to be on the list already to be able to move up, and estimated that there are 50 to 60 people on a waiting list just for two-bedroom apartments. But he noted that the list has opened several times in the last few years.
Ravelo noted that she has not been on public assistance and has made her best effort to work.
"I was perfectly fine before the fire," she said.
Now what?
So that she could take care of Megan, who is out of school for the summer, Ravelo asked her boss at the diner in Hoboken for reduced hours. He said that he would need to replace her if she couldn’t work the hours she was working. So a week ago, she quit. She has a letter from her boss recommending her for other jobs.
On Tuesday, she had an interview scheduled with Kings Fresh Ideas supermarket in Hoboken.
Ravelo said, "There are people I know who get [public assistance] and don’t need it. And then, there are people like me struggling and breaking my buns. I never got Welfare, and I can’t even get affordable housing. All I want to do is just have a chance to raise my kids. I haven’t seen my two kids in eight months."
She added, "I’ve had one door slammed in my face after the other. And I’ve been working and working…all I hear is ‘I’m going to try to do this, and I’m going to try to do that,’ and I’m in a race against time. The next step is out the door."
Stan Eason, a spokesman for Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham, said that city officials were looking into her situation. "We’re looking at not just her application, which was specific to Arlington Gardens, but if there’s anywhere else in the Jersey City Housing Authority to facilitate this woman’s problem or pending problem," he said.
He noted that if someone is already on a wait list, becoming homeless through a fire might help them move up. But Ravelo is not on wait lists.
A spokesman for the city of Hoboken did not respond by press time.
If you have a way to help Ravelo, she can be reached at her friend’s house at (201) 798-4663.