Dominick Andrus fell behind on rent. The two-week “pay or vacate” notice landed on his apartment door in February. He owed $155.20.
For others, it’s been less: $49, $50, $95.
Andrus lives in a beige seven-story Capitol Hill apartment building owned and operated by the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA). He spent three years waiting for a space in Seattle’s rare public housing. Now that he’s there, he lives precariously. Partially blind since birth, Andrus lives off of Social Security and food stamps. He readily admits that he’s missed rent before, sometimes because of unexpected bills. This time, he says, his food stamps disbursement decreased and he fell behind. When he did get the money together to pay his rent in March, SHA had already filed a case against him in King County Superior Court.
“They were giving me an option. ‘You can move out if you want to,'” Andrus says. “I have no place to live.”
Eviction is a destabilizing experience for anyone, but the stakes for those in public housing are particularly high. SHA and the King County Housing Authority (KCHA) primarily serve people making $28,800 or less for a family of four. Rent is usually set at 30 percent of income. Because of that, public housing tenants can face eviction for financial sums that appear surprisingly small but can quickly become insurmountable.
