When a letter from the Phoenix Housing Department arrived in Esther Sánchez’s mailbox informing her she might lose her housing voucher, she feared she and her two young children could be left homeless.
Sánchez is a working single mom, currently going to school on a pre-med track for nursing at Gateway Community College. The letter only added to the stress she was experiencing from keeping up with her responsibilities, including caring for her children.
After reading the letter in late September, she realized that this notice was the fourth and final warning, but she hadn’t received the first three.
Sánchez was furious about the possibility of eviction because the Phoenix Housing Department, which partners with a consulting company called Arizona Quadel, sent the other notices to the incorrect address, she said.
Quadel joined the city’s housing team in 2018 after the housing department could not meet financial needs from the amount of funds they were receiving, while keeping their employee’s benefits. Now, the department pays Quadel to help run the affordable housing programs.
The Quadel team said they provide “best practice implementation and quality operation” for their clients.
But Sánchez said she has had issues with Quadel before the notice came in the mail, on which her first name was spelled wrong. For several months, she had sent her rent money to the wrong address without being notified.
She also said the housing staff, who seem to come and go fairly quickly, do not always treat voucher holders kindly.
“I feel like they see us as lower people sometimes, just from the interaction we have with certain people,” Sánchez said. “It’s just the tone of voice or how they talk to us is what upsets me.”
Sánchez said that she is grateful to have a roof over her and her kids’ heads, but does not think the area is giving her much more opportunity to get ahead. She said the low-income apartments near the Garfield Neighborhood in downtown Phoenix are falling apart, and maintenance has to be called constantly.
“I think the only positive thing about the area I live in is that it’s closer to downtown,” Sánchez said. “We deal with a lot of crime. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard gunshots go off outside my apartment.”
Titus Mathew, the deputy housing director of Phoenix, said that he has not received any significant complaints from residents for service or employee conduct.
“We have not had any major issues that I know of,” Mathew said. Quadel “has to comply with our contract. We have exact performance measures…so we look at all the program stats about the family compositions and how timely they are delivering services, are there any complaints coming in from the clients, are they getting results.”
Members of the Quadel staff did not respond to requests for comment, and Mathew wouldn’t confirm or deny any details of Sánchez’s case.
On the final warning notice, Sánchez read that she needed to schedule a hearing and bring several pieces of paperwork, but she had no means of transportation and was temporarily disabled due to a recent injury to her foot.
After speaking with a housing staff member, Sánchez said she was still confused about what steps she should take in regards to the hearing and felt belittled for not having a way to attend in-person at that time.
“Transportation has been one of the biggest struggles for us because I still have to get groceries and other small things here and there. I just got approved for Dial-a-Ride about two weeks ago, and with that, I pretty much have to plan ahead.”
According to CoAbode, an online service that helps connect single mothers, single-parent homes are extremely vulnerable to poverty and homelessness.
In Maricopa County alone, almost 33% of all households with children are headed by single mothers, according to a 2018 economic study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Sánchez said she had been homeless before and waited almost two years to get her voucher approved the first time, after being on a waitlist of 27,000 people that was released by the housing department in 2017.
She said she prepared her kids, 8 and 6-years-old, for the possibility of having to move again, but didn’t go too much in detail so they weren’t scared.
Luckily for Sánchez, the Phoenix Housing Department said it will not terminate vouchers due to late paperwork under current pandemic circumstances, but will send out warning notices as it is a requirement for the annual renewal process.
“The Phoenix market is one of the most difficult markets in the country for people to find housing, so we are doing all kinds of help,” Mathew said. “Our mission is to house as many people as possible, it’s not to make them homeless.”
Although she now realizes she will not lose her housing, Sánchez said she wishes she did not have to go through so much stress due to a supposed Quadel clerical error.
“I hope that they are aware that people are in unfortunate circumstances, people are disabled, especially with the low income community who don’t have access to a lot of resources,” Sánchez said. “We are all human beings and deserve as many resources and opportunities as anybody else.”
Contact the reporter at mphammel@asu.edu.
"The Flexible Journalist" -
Hammel is a fourth-year student studying broadcast journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite college in an accelerated bachelor's-master's program. She is currently the Executive Editor for The Downtown Devil - a publication that covers hyperlocal news in the downtown Phoenix area - and is always looking for ways to improve her reporting and news writing skills—behind the camera and in front of it.
Hammel is also a certified yoga instructor at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex; she is flexible physically as well as in a way that allows her to be able to cover any news story that will educate the public, encourage civil discourse and impact communities.
