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After an eviction in March 2024, Tytinisha Mitchell and her daughter largely lived in Mitchell\u2019s car until the city provided her with a motel voucher in late August. Russell Stiger II, OBSERVER<\/p>\nWhen Tytinisha Mitchell lost her apartment in March 2024, she was several months pregnant and already struggling to stay afloat after aging out of a foster youth housing program.<\/p>\n
Mitchell, 26, had been connected to the Next Move program, which offers transitional housing support to former foster youth. She says she was phased out after three years.<\/p>\n
A few months before she lost her apartment, the leasing office at her complex received a letter from SHRA saying it no longer would send rent payments for Mitchell\u2019s unit. She says she was not told directly about that decision.<\/p>\n
In an email, SHRA public information officer Angela Jones wrote that one of the most common reasons that a family\u2019s participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program is terminated \u201cis failure to comply with program rules, such as missing deadlines for verifying eligibility to receive and maintain a voucher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other reasons Jones mentioned were \u201cfailing to report changes in household members or income changes, or violating their lease.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that SHRA works \u201cclosely with families and make[s] every reasonable effort to gain compliance to avoid withdrawing their voucher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell, however, says the reasons for her termination were unclear. \u201cThey kind of told me there\u2019s not very much they can do,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Without housing support, Mitchell fell behind on rent. Her eviction forced her to live in her car. Mitchell describes a cycle of temporary shelter and exhaustion since.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been homeless for about seven months, so it\u2019s been in and out,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t really calculate how long we\u2019ve been in the car exactly, but probably a good total amount of nights, maybe a month. We\u2019re going in and out of people\u2019s apartments, back and forth, sleeping. I have, like, probably four friends\u2019 houses that I\u2019ve slept back and forth at.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stayed with her daughter\u2019s father and his mother for about three months but says they asked her to leave when she became pregnant again. After that, she and her daughter alternated between nights in the car and brief stays with friends.<\/p>\n
The instability has taken a toll on Mitchell\u2019s mental and physical health. She says she is in the process of being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, conditions she connects to the stress of housing insecurity and her learning disability, which makes it harder to navigate assistance programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like in the beginning I was taken advantage of because I was rushed into something, not knowing what I was really getting myself into,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The effects worsened during her pregnancy. She was hospitalized once for high blood pressure and later developed preeclampsia, a condition marked by dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was dealing with the hardship of housing, wondering where my child\u2019s going to live,\u201d Mitchell says.<\/p>\n
Mitchell also has lost weight and struggled to eat, which has complicated her pregnancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to get iron infusions,\u201d she says. \u201cNow the doctors are discussing infusing me with food because I\u2019m not able to properly get my intake for the baby and me. That\u2019s due to depression because I don\u2019t have an appetite.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daughter\u2019s health also has suffered.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had pneumonia for two weeks because we were outside and it was cold at night,\u201d Mitchell says. \u201cShe has asthma now because we\u2019ve been in the air, having to be outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
After an eviction in March 2024, Tytinisha Mitchell and her daughter largely lived in Mitchell\u2019s car until the city provided her with a motel voucher in late August. Russell Stiger II, OBSERVER<\/p>\n
Research 2021 shows<\/a> that homelessness during pregnancy is associated with adverse perinatal outcomes. The physical toll of homelessness can be severe, including increased odds of preterm delivery and low birth weight independent of preterm delivery. The 2021 study in the Journal of Perinatology followed 672 women who were homeless at the time of delivery and concluded that safe and long-term housing of expectant mothers may alleviate some risk factors for both the mother and the child.<\/p>\n