How Much Has Your Rent Increased?

There’s not enough housing to go around

I wasn’t born to be poor! I wasn’t meant to be poor, and I’m ill-suited to be poor.

I did all the right things, went to college, paid for most of it myself, and had good jobs throughout my life. But, the beginning of the end — why I am here — is my divorce. That’s where the downhill slide started, and she was so vicious for years I was never able to catch up.

But if you were to look around my “casita” (what we in the Southwest call a little house), you would not think a poor person lived here.

My kitchen is fully equipped sans dishwasher — that’s me! Most anything you’d need to cook most anything is there. I pride myself on having every condiment you’d ever use and 26 jars of alphabetized Spice Islands spices. (I just counted them.)

What was that skit on SNL called? The Anal-Retentive Chef?

I have a nice, comfortable queen sleeper sofa in the living room. Lots of succulents in the South window and a beautifully-displayed arrangement of model airplanes. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but why collect it if you’re not going to display it? They’re a pain in the ass to dust, though. There is a coffee table with a handful of tchotchkes. The art on my walls is colorful and tasteful.

I have a bedroom set that matches with nice linens, an ample closet for the clothes horse in me, and lots of mirrors. Yes. Lots of mirrors.

And then there’s my office, where I spend most of my time. It is so me. It’s where I write. Where I plan my life. Make my grocery lists, pay my bills, plan my travels, you name it.

There is a driveway with off-street parking and a garage which I mainly use for storage and my grill.

Really, I have everything I need except one thing.

Money.

Guess who’s coming for compensation?

My landlord dropped by this morning. I knew she was going to, so I ensured the place was Febreeze-fresh, with cut flowers from my garden and candies and nuts on the coffee table. I asked her what she wanted to drink, and she declined.

She has been my landlord for two years. There are four casitas on the property. She has not increased the rent for the two years since she bought the property. And let me tell you — by Albuquerque standards, it has been a steal. Not that rents have been that high here, but while the rest of the country and even this city have seen rent increases of up to 50%, mine has remained static.

Until today.

Her proposed increase is 31%. She presented a new lease and expects it to be in place on January 1. I need to answer by November 30. Should I stay or should I go?

I feel like a millennial. I would buy this place if I had the down payment, but I don’t. Not that it’s for sale.

Right now, I’m still in a state of shock. I don’t want to move. This place has everything I’d want. Gardening is my main hobby, and it has a lovely little private courtyard in front where I grow many flowers and vegetables in containers. Off to the side of the casita is a large flower bed where I experiment with growing flowers of all kinds directly in the shitty, sandy soil we have here. I’ve spent untold hours fortifying it with compost to get a spade through it.

Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

It’s laughable. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing for rent, especially at my price point. There are always apartment complexes, but there’s no private outdoor space, let alone a place to grow plants. And now, they’re way overpriced. Many of them are in shitty shape, and crime is rampant. We’ve had more than one hundred homicides this year, on pace with last year’s record.

Still, I love New Mexico for its incredible outdoor life, and Albuquerque is smack dab in the middle. You could take weekend road trips for years and not run out of new places to see.

But there is a systemic problem in this country, and it’s getting worse. Real estate values have escalated, so anyone under the national median income who wants to buy a house can’t. That would have been unheard of thirty years ago. In addition, interest rates are out of the roof. As a result, this populace faces renting for the rest of their lives.

But here’s the catch: there aren’t enough affordable rental units. Rents for what’s available are driving people homeless. Developers don’t want to build rental units for those who used to be considered middle-class. They want to build homes for the 1%, which is growing.

There really is no middle class anymore. Most of us are living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck.

Compound income? No, compound expenditures.

If you knew me, you wouldn’t call me an old person. I’ve had cancer and chemotherapy in the last year, and while I lost all my hair, it grew back thicker than ever without gray. I think I have many years to live, and I have no idea how I will afford them.

I just turned 65, so Medicare Parts A and B are taking $171 out of my Social Security check each month, and I haven’t even approached a supplement and Part D yet. Rent is going up $250/month. I’m trying to manage an untenable amount of credit card debt with interest rates increasing monthly. The items I’ve put on them have not been wants but needs, including my son’s death. Unexpected expenses.

When I first started writing on Medium, I thought that eventually, I’d be at a point where I’d make enough not to have to seek a part-time job, but that is not coming to fruition. At 65, I’ll soon be interviewing for menial, part-time jobs. Sixty-fucking-five.

I understand how people become homeless.

I’d love to hear any of your stories where your rent has skyrocketed and you’re having difficulty making ends meet. Maybe we can share some ideas of how to “just get by” in this day and age, let alone get ahead.

Here are a couple of my other works you may enjoy reading:

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