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I am being evicted from my apartment.

I have been sick with what has now become a lung disease for more than 2 years.

I have been completely unable to work and as a result unable to pay rent.

In mid June my landlord had me served with a 3-day notice, which Is the first step in the eviction process.

I was referred to, and began working with an eviction defense lawyer and we started fighting the case immediately.

Many people think that you can't evict someone who is chronically ill, that the law tends to be on the side of the tenant, and that eviction is a slow process, unfortunately none of that is true.

My medical condition isn't even a factor in my eviction, the only thing that matters is money and since I can't work and my SSI case has been stuck in the appeals stage for a full year,

I owe my landlord a large amount of money.

There are programs in the Bay Area that provide rental assistance to people who have fallen behind on rent. I applied to numerous programs in Oakland and Alameda County and was rejected immediately because I am unemployed and not yet receiving SSI or Disability.

(Even by programs that say they serve those populations)

I applied to other programs in person and online and was told that I would be contacted by their intake team but no date or time was specified, many programs never called, and the few times that they did I was deemed ineligible to receive rental assistance or any other services with almost no explanation.

Towards the end of June I began to feel more sick than usual and suspected that I had a lung Infection. On July 1st I went to UCSF for an X-Ray. My pulmonologist noticed irregularities in the X-Ray and ordered an urgent CT scan which also showed abnormalities that appeared to be a fungal or bacterial infection. I went to the ER and was hospitalized at UCSF for the next 9 days.

My eviction defense lawyer found a bureaucratic loophole and filed a motion that paused the eviction process and bought me some extra time.

More than 3 months later I am still recovering. My breathing is much more labored, I am much more reliant on my inhalers and albuterol breathing treatments, I am more tired and fatigued and require more sleep in order to function at all.

In mid September I had another severe pulmonary infection where I coughed up a large amount of blood. CT scans showed even more nodular spread in my lungs but it was determined that it was safer for me to recover at home than in the hospital.

If I am evicted from this apartment I have nowhere to go, not even temporarily.

I will be homeless. I have no family or friends who are in the position to take me in.

I am on waitlists for public and affordable housing but there is a housing crisis in the Bay Area and wait times are a minimum of 1-3 years because the need for public and affordable housing greatly exceeds the availability.

During my hospitalization I was diagnosed with a condition known as Oropharyngeal Dysphagia. This condition causes a small amount of aspiration each time I swallow. Instead of going into my esophagus and stomach a small amount of food, liquid and saliva as well as the bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms naturally found in them, goes into my airway and then into my lungs causing inflammation and infection.

This condition is likely the cause of many of the pulmonary infections I’ve had over the last 2 years, and is the primary cause of my lung disease.

Although the discovery of this condition 2 years into my illness is frustrating because it appeared in prior tests, I am trying to focus on the fact that I AM FINALLY IN TREATMENT.

I am doing exercises to retrain and strengthen the muscles I use when I swallow, and practicing new swallow strategies which will reduce and eventually eliminate the aspiration caused by this condition. I have been doing these exercises 3 times a day at home and at UCSF with a speech language pathologist.

After exhausting all other treatment options I have to undergo Bariatric surgery which is primarily for weight loss but is sometimes used to treat cases of very severe GERD such as mine. This surgery has as much as a 3 month recovery time and will require significant lifestyle change, but it will completely eliminate my GERD as another potential source of aspiration.

I will be having this surgery on November 11th.

I recently did an inpatient sleep study and the results showed that I am not getting any deep sleep.

Low levels of deep sleep can cause physical and cognitive fatigue, cognitive impairment and can even weaken the immune system causing greater susceptibility to infection and slower healing time. I can restore my deep sleep by changing and improving my sleep hygiene.

I have to start by taking magnesium supplements, trying to go to sleep and wake up at the same time 7 days a week, and by going outside to get 30 minutes of sunlight every day within an hour of waking up.

When I got home from the hospital in July I made changes to this apartment to make it more conducive to my recovery and regaining my physical health. The changes that I made are simple but make it so that I can work towards getting my deep sleep back and do my dysphagia management exercises and nebulizer breathing treatments in a clean sterile place.

I was finally approved for IHSS (In Home Supportive Services) and assigned a worker to help keep my apartment clean and do my laundry which has been extremely helpful since I am frequently too fatigued to do these things myself. This service will be crucial when I am recovering from surgery.

If I am evicted my only options are homeless shelters and Single Room Occupancy (SROs). With my health in the precarious state that it is currently in, if I have to share living space or communal kitchens and bathrooms with multiple people, my health will almost certainly continue to get worse.

I need a place where I can heal and recover, where I can change the way that I sleep and regain the restorative deep sleep that will be an integral part of my recovery.

I need a place where I can plug-in and use my nebulizer 3 times a day and during emergencies, where I can safely and sterilely wash it’s breathing attachments and leave them to dry without fear of contamination or theft.

I need a place where I can do my dysphagia management exercises and practice my swallow strategies, a place where I can continue to filter and store my drinking water and Lifestraw water filter that removes bacteria, parasites and pathogens found in tap water, that I am especially vulnerable to because of the aspiration that I experience when I swallow.

I need a clean safe place to recover from the surgery I will be having on November 11th, which will take 3 months or longer.

I will not be able to do any of this living in an SRO or in a homeless shelter, and I certainly won’t be able to if I am homeless.

My lawyer thought that there was one more way to pause the eviction process while I recovered from my most recent infection, unfortunately it didn’t work and my court date which she thought would be in mid to late December, is now on November 5th.

The court encourages settlement conferences and landlord-tenant mediation before cases go to trial. I may be able to negotiate a financial settlement with my landlord and stop the eviction from going to trial. When evictions go to trial statistics show that scales tip greatly in the landlords favor and tenants are far more likely to lose.

My lawyer believes that my landlord will not stop the eviction for anything less than $10,000 which is a large portion of the back rent that I owe.

I know this is an extremely large amount of money to ask for in such a short amount of time but I don't have any other options.

When my SSI application is approved I will be paid retroactively. I will then be able to pay my landlord the rest of the money that I owe him, and will be able to pay my rent going forward.

After being sick for more than 2 years I am finally in treatment. I have a chance to regain my health, and a chance to get my life back, maybe even a better life, lived with more meaning and purpose, a life that I am more appreciative of.

My health is at a place where it could go in either direction. If I have a clean safe place where I can work on my recovery I finally have a chance for my health to improve, if I don’t, my health could quickly deteriorate, perhaps even irreversibly.

I urgently need your help so I can remain housed and in a clean, safe, stable environment while I recover.

I am extremely grateful for any help that you are able to provide.

Thank you so much.

Shane.