(WXYZ) — The deaths of two unhoused children in Detroit over the weekend have many people thinking about housing insecurity.
Today, I spoke with a mother of seven in Oakland County who has been struggling for seven months to find permanent housing for her family. She’s frustrated with the system and the roadblocks that keep a place to call home just out of reach.
Last April, Keniesha Jackson and her seven kids left a domestic violence situation and moved into a shelter for a short period of time.
“Found me a work-from-home job because I was determined to get back on my feet, and I came back to stay at the Extended Stay, where even now working is very hard having the two smaller ones,” is how Jackson describes the tiny living arrangement with one adult and seven kids. “Yes, we make it work.”
What’s it like?
“It’s chaos,” Jackson says.
Though she has been working with Community Housing Network in Oakland County, she still hasn’t found a permanent place to live.
“The landlords are still going to want three times the rent. The landlords are still going to want close to perfect credit. And so the program is essentially still not much help. I’m still trying, I’m calling supervisors, the supervisors aren’t returning calls. And so they tell me, because of my family size being so big, ‘Oh, there’s not much housing, there’s not much out here,'" Jackson says. “I’m still just looking on my own.”
Keniesha says she’s always thinking about business and ways to make money. She’s currently making t-shirts for sale for Valentine's Day and even showed me children’s books she has written, filled with messages of hope.
And yet, she wonders if she made the wrong choice.
“I didn’t stay in that relationship. I feel like, ‘Oh if I stayed then we wouldn’t be going through this right now.’ So I feel like guilt around it, like, um, because you just want to do the best you can for your kids," Jackson says. "And it’s hard when things are going so good, and then it just comes crashing, and you don’t have any other options.”
Does she feel like the system is failing her?
“I think it’s failing not only myself but many other people…because we feel like there’s no hope,” she says.
Kirsten Elliott is the CEO of Community Housing Network, which is currently working with Keniesha.
“Keniesha has been very diligent and tenacious in following up on all the leads and working with landlords and trying to get them to accept, and we just have not had a landlord that has accepted the funding source that we have,” Elliott says. “We have resources to pay for the housing that’s like long-term housing, but we don’t have enough landlords or enough units that will accept the housing vouchers that we have.”
But is there anything that she would say to Keniesha?
“I would say, Keniesha, I am so sorry that it’s taking so long, and we are doing everything we possibly can, and please stick with us," Elliot says. We are going to, we are not giving up on you. We’re going to figure this out. And I’m really hoping that this interview, I hope it helps to find a landlord we can work with and that accepts your funding.”
And of course we really hope there is someone out there watching who wants to help Keniesha get the home she needs.
If you would like to buy her t-shirts and books, you can go to her website.
She also has a GoFundMe link as well because we all need a little help sometimes.
