Evicted at age 10: Her family was forced out of their home. She just wanted to keep them together – San Francisco Chronicle

FRESNO The officers arrived on East Princeton Avenue in the early morning, pointing theirguns down at the yellow lawn. In her bedroom, the walls scribbledwithcrayon drawings, Bre-Anna Valenzuela woke to the pounding of a fist on the steel front gate.

Fresno County Sheriffs Office! a deputyyelled. Eviction!

Bre-Anna, who goes by Bre, came to the door, standing behind her grandmother, hugging a baby doll to her chest. She listened as the manexplained that theyhad just a few minutes toleave. Shebegan to pack her things: her school-issued laptop, her favorite Barbie.

Shewas only 10, but she knew her family had nowhere else to go.

All over the state and country, millions of people like the Valenzuelas are in danger of losing their homes as the worst of the pandemic ends. In Fresno County, more than 650 families have been forced out of their homes since the coronavirus took hold last year, despite a federal eviction moratorium and local measures that aimed to provide relief.

Here, in a sprawling Central Valley county, evictions occurred at a rate nearly four times higher than in Los Angeles and eight times higher than in San Francisco.

Fresno County Sheriffs officers serve eviction notices in Fresno in late March 2021.

Nearly half of families in Fresno, where the typical household income is 30% below the state average, dont own their own homes. And even as rents have dropped elsewhere since March 2020, they have risen 17.1%in Fresno, the fifth largest city in California. Since 2017, median rent has soared 41%, the second-largest increase in the nation, behind only Boise, Idaho.

The Valenzuelas were already living check to check near Lafayette Park when eviction notices started appearing on their door. Their only stable income was the $942 in social security that Bres mother received monthly, plus her fathers $1,800 in unemployment.

He said he stopped working full-time last year when he broke his neck in a car accident; now he repaired bicycles in their yard and sold them online, sometimes bringing in $150, sometimes nothing at all.

The same deputies who came to Bres door on March 23 would continue across Fresno County, arriving at a new address every 20 minutes. Some families heeding whitenotices taped to their doors had already vacated their homes. Manyleft possessions behind: a drivers license, memorabilia from a military tour in Iraq, a single ruffled babysock.

As the early morning sky turned pink and purple, Bre stood outside with the deputies and a tub of four sleeping kittens, the latest litter of her cat, Bella. She watched as her mother, Danetta, came outside in an electric wheelchair, a portable oxygen tank between her white sneakers.

Bres father cursed as he tossed his guitar and toolbox into the travel-trailer parked in their driveway, which he had hoped to fix up and sell. A locksmith drilled the knob off the front gate, replacing it with a new lock, the house still full of their belongings.

Bre understood her familys fragility how they had been teetering on the edge of crisis for years and how the loss of their home could upend them.

She decided she needed to fix this, before it was too late. Standing on the sidewalk, the girl began to form her secret plan.

Bre-Anna Valenzuela, her mother, Danetta, and older brother, P.J., walk in their neighborhood.

The Valenzuelas came to California from Guntersville, Ala. Theyd been happy there or at least thats what Bres parents told her.

She was 6 when they moved back to Fresno, where her father had grown up and she had been born, and into the house on East Princeton Avenue. She couldnt remember much about living in the south, though Danetta, now 44, liked to tease her daughter by saying her accent came out when she was angry.

Bre as a baby. Courtesy Valenzuelas

If theyd been happy in Alabama, Bre thought, it was because they had money, and money had made their life seem normal. Her father, Brian, worked at a chicken plant. Her mother stayed home with Bre, her older brother, P.J., and their oldbrown dog, Henry, who greeted Bre at the school bus stop every afternoon.

They took a road trip to Key West, swimming in the Atlantic and eating key lime pie. In the summer, they drove around Guntersville Lake, or vacationed over the state line in Chattanooga, Tenn. Wednesday evenings meant bible study; Sunday mornings brought mass.

But Danetta was sick. Terminally illwith kidney disease and congestive heart failure, she had been in hospicemore times than Bre could remember. In truth, Bre had never known what it was like to have a healthy mother.

Danetta had developed preeclampsia while pregnant with her. She had chosen to keep Bre, despite doctors suggestion that she consider an abortion. Soon after her daughter was born, Danetta was in a wheelchair.

Danettas condition has led to multiple hospitalizations.

In the fall of 2016, after Brian saved enough money to buy his wife a diamond ring, they renewed their vows at a Baptist church in Guntersville; Danettas stomach was so bloated that she couldnt zip up any of the four dresses she bought for the occasion.

But they made the most of it, walking down the aisle to Stevie Nicks and Don Henleys Leather and Lace. Bre wore a flouncy white dress, which she hated, as the flower girl.

The following spring,Bres parentssigned a lease for the house on East Princeton Avenue. They told the owner, Louise Lolly Traxler, that they were moving back to California for the state-subsidized health and dental insurance, which they thought would cover more of Danettas bills.

Traxler, 74, who had workedas a financial counselor for patients at a nearby hospital, said she felt sorry for the Valenzuelas. Danettareminded Traxler of the dyingpeople she had helped over the years at work.

Danetta and Brian renewed their vows in Alabama in 2016 before moving to California. Courtesy Valenzuelas

Her own mother had bought the 800-square-foot house in 1949, when it was pastel pink, with hope it would provide her two daughters the stability she had lacked growing up. Purchasing the house had been her mothers greatest accomplishment, Traxler said, and before she died in 2002, her final wish had been that her daughters never sell it.

Traxler hadnt considered becoming a landlord, but she decided to honor her mothers wishes and rent the house out. The lease she signed with Danetta, Traxler later said, was as good as tissue paper, because theValenzuelas rarely paid the $900 rent on time, if at all.

After moving back to Fresno, Brian, 47, enrolled in a refrigeration training program at a local vocational school, hoping to make more money than he had at the chicken plant. But with their budget increasingly stretched raising two small children in a city with a rising cost of living Brian dropped out of the program and took a job in a warehouse.

Then, last year, Brian said, he was riding in his sisters truck when another driver hit them. Unable to do heavy labor with a broken neck, he lost the job, and has been repairing bikes ever since.

The unemployment and disability checks went to purchasing used bikes and bike parts, bus fares and groceries. As Danettas health continued to fail, they filled their shopping carts with nutrition drinks.

Danetta kept the invoices for her medical bills in a plastic bag in the kitchen, intent on paying them. But sometimes, instead, she would spend the money on gifts for the children at Walmart and splurge on special occasions.

She didnt think she would be around for holidays and birthdays in future years, so Danetta tried to make each milestone special even if it meant not paying rent. Sometimes, she said, she and Brian withheld money to make repairs.

Brian bikes with the family dog, Little Mama.

To be closer to her sister, Traxler had moved to a mobile home park for seniors more than 130 miles away in Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County). In her absence, the house on East Princeton Avenue deteriorated: black mold, a mice infestation, broken plumbing.

Traxler, who said she receives $1,300 a month in social security, paid for what she could with credit cards. She replaced the refrigerator and oven with new appliances and hired a handyman to inspect the piping.

But the problems persisted and multiplied: A splotchy leak that Bre thought looked like a manta ray formedon the ceiling above Danettas bed. Bre found cockroaches in her Barbie Dreamhouse. She carried them outside, rather than smoosh them, because she thought they were only trying to live, like us.

Still, the Valenzuelas loved their home.It was cramped and cheap, but it was theirs.

They inflated a bounce house in the backyard for Bres unicorn-themed ninth birthday and propped an artificial pinein the living room window atChristmastime, so everyone could see it from the street. Danetta hung curtains and painted the kitchen green and white.Sometimes, Bre thought the house was the only thing keeping them together.

Brians mother, Sharon, often stayed with them, helping with the children while Danetta was on dialysis or at medical appointments. She lived with her husband in a small duplex 2 miles away. Their family was just about complete when they adopted Bella to catch the mice and roaches. Soon, she had her litter of kittens.

Then, in October 2020, her credit card debt mounting, Traxler sold the home to Capitol Real Estate Group of Visalia, just south of Fresno.

Sharon Valenzuela and granddaughter Bre have a close relationship. Sharon often stayed with her sons family to help when Danetta was ill.

Traxler said she wasnt trying to be a cruel landlady. She hadnt wanted to sell the home at all but with her age and disability, she saw no choice. She accepted $85,000. Less than a mile away, homes being flipped listed for more than $260,000.

Andres Andrew Banuelosbecame the Valenzuelas new landlord. Banuelos, who lives in San Luis Obispo, states on his companys website that he has helped manage over 150 property transactions for multiple investors.

Within three months of purchasing the home,the real estate group hadhired a lawyer based in Bakersfield she declined to comment for this story and filed for eviction against Traxler, although she no longer owned the home nor lived in it.

The notices started arriving in January. Danetta and Brian said they ignored the paperwork because their names werent on the envelopes;they assumed it was a misunderstanding. They said theycontinued paying partial rent to Traxler a claim Traxler disputes.

The Valenzuelas said they didnt realize Banuelos was their landlord. And with Danetta spending more and more time in the emergency room, they did not look into the legal notices. After all, Danetta said, they thought they were protected by the eviction moratorium a common misbelief that advocates and policymakers have seen across the region.

Theres this assumption that evictions are banned and arent happening right now, said Dr. Amber Crowell, a sociology professor at Fresno State University who studies housing inequality. It sounds more comprehensive than what it actually is.

The moratorium, she said, mostly only covers people who would be evicted for unpaid rent. And even with that, there are a lot of hoops they have to jump through. That leaves a lot of room for other types of evictions to happen. Your average person cannot explain what their rights are.

Danetta struggles to catch her breath while sorting through mail at the home the family was forced to vacate.

Had they read the notices closely, the Valenzuelas would have understood the eviction order included all occupants, named or not. Banuelos would later saythey had voidedtheir lease by allowing Sharon to stay with them and by not properly taking care of the home both evictable offenses.

He said they had also failed to pay rent since October, though the paperwork filed in court didnt ask for the payment of back rent, only a $40 processing fee. Under the moratorium, eviction because of non-payment is illegal if a family has been impacted by COVID-19.

Banuelos said he plans to flip the house, reselling at a profit.

They violated the terms, Banuelos said. Thats a them situation, not an us situation.

Bres family spent the first night after the eviction at Motel 6, listening to the commotion of traffic and the thundering of planes from the nearby Fresno Air Attack Base. Unable to afford a second nights stay, they checked out at 11 a.m. and rode abusback to East Princeton Avenue.

Bre stared out the window. She wore the same black Star Wars T-shirt from the day before, and chipped pink polish on her toenails.

Halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles on Highway 99, Fresno is an agricultural powerhousewithin range ofYosemite National Park. Housing in the city, though, has not kept pace with demand, particularly as the pandemic trend toward remote work has made the Central Valley more desirable.

A shortfall of 41,000 housing units has often left low-income and minority families like the Valenzuelas, who are Native American and Hispanicunable to pay rent, according tothe National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Though Fresno has tried to help out through its Emergency Rental Assistance Program, the city offered just $5,952.09 to 284 applicants in April an average of $20 per household.

The amount of documentation required by the federal and state government has resulted in us providing relief at an extremely low pace, said Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias. The program also requires that we have landlord participation and agreement. Its almost like filling out a mortgage application.

As relief trickles out, evictions have continued because of legal loopholes and varying interpretations of what the federal moratoriummeans. Even if tenants prove they cannot pay rent due to COVID-19, they can be evicted for other reasons, such as having too many people living on the property or failing to maintain the yard.

With the moratorium set to expire at the end of this month, one large property management company in Fresnohas filed paperwork in court seeking at least 300 evictions, according to sheriffs deputies.

The Valenzuelasreached their stop and walked the few final minutes to their house. They no longer had keys, but had to find a way back inside Danetta needed to plug in her oxygen machine.So she slid open the living room window, parted the flowered curtains and motioned to her daughter. Bre shimmied through the window, then unlocked the front door.

Danetta and Bre eat cereal on the porch of the house they were evicted from. Bre climbed through the window to unlock the door. Danetta looked up legal advice and called Governor Gavin Newsoms office on her cell phone.

On the kitchen counter, a pan of brownies theyd baked the night before the eviction had gone stale. Sharon poured Lucky Charms into glasscontainersfor Danetta and Bre, then emptied the last of the cereal into a dish for Little Mama, the pit bull.

Brian busied himself in the side yard painting a tandembike bright teal. He hoped to sell it by days end to pay for another night at the motel.As he worked, Bre, Danetta and Sharon sat on the shaded front porch and searched for answers.

Siri, tell me about squatters rights, Danetta said, rasping into her cell phone. Her oxygen machine whirred.

She had already missed a dialysis session because of the eviction. The extra fluid in her abdomen made her belly balloon outward. She had to wear extra-large T-shirts, despite her petite frame. On days like these, Bre thought her mom looked pregnant.

Bre played with her Barbies, one with brown dreads, the other with crimped blonde hair that shed streaked with colored markers. She liked to think they were twins, because if they were twins, they would have each other, unlike her and her 14-year-oldbrother, who was always at his girlfriends house.

Bre took a soggy bite of cereal. Danetta read aloud from a website that offered legal help for $5, as Sharon cautioned there would be more money to pay after that.

They learned that,to prevent their eviction, they would have had to provide proof to their new landlord that they couldnt pay rent within 10 days of the original eviction notice. Even if they had done that, they learned, they would have owed at least 25% of their monthly rent, or $225.

Swept up by personal crises, they hadnt realized that cobbling together the money could have helped prevent their eviction. They hadnt attempted to get aid of any kind.

On Danettas phone, they watched a news conference from January,when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the states eviction moratorium would extend through at least June 30. He vowed that $2.6 billion in aid to renters $1.4 billion of it from the state and $1.2 billion from counties and cities would be administered quickly.

These families need protection and relief now, Newsom said to applause.

Much of that aid would go unspent in the next few months, the distribution of cash backlogged by bureaucracy and an online application process that confused tenants. By May, less than 10% of available funds, or $102 million, had been distributed by the state, despite the application portal opening two months earlier, on March 15.

Bre collects some of her belongings the day after being evicted from the familys home.

Danetta couldnt find answers to most of their questions: Did they really only have 15 days to retrieve their belongings? Were they trespassing now by being at their own house? Could they still apply for coronavirus rent relief fundsfrom the state, though they didnt have the paperwork to prove their income had dropped, that Brian had flipped fewer bikes over the past year? Or that she was disabled and on social security?

OK, Google, call Governor Newsom, Danetta said.

An automated recording listed the options. Danetta pressed 1 for English, then 6 to talk with a representative. Her call transferred and disconnected. She called back, navigating the phone tree again. She waited on hold.

Sharon smoked a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros tucked in her bra strap. Tapping on her phone, she sent an email to Bres school, letting them know the fourth-grader wouldnt be logged into class that day. They were in transition, she wrote. Bre twirled an orange fidget spinner.

Twelve minutes later, the line clicked. Is this is this somebody for Mr. Newsom? Danetta asked.

Yes, I work for the governor, said a legislative aide who introduced himself as Cole. Whats on your mind?

Danetta explained that theyd recently lost their home, that shed already called California Rural Legal Assistance and Central California Legal Services, that the nonprofits weretoo overwhelmed to help and could only offer other phone numbers to try.

Shed called the clerks office at Fresno County Superior Court, the United States Housing Authority, Catholic Charities and Cherokee Nation, which sometimes offers money to Native families in distress.

Shed received no help. The aide offered her a link to a website, which he said would be the best resource available. He said that Danetta was right, that the governor had signed a moratorium into law, but that there were different ways that people can be affected by it and he couldnt say what that meant for her.

So theres no other advice you can give me? Danetta asked.

Unfortunately not.

Ending the call, Danetta sent Bre back into the house for their Blu-ray player. They still had the receipt and could return it to Walmart for cash, affording them another $89 night at Motel 6.

Bre rides on the front of Danettas wheelchair as they leave the Motel 6 with Sharon to get breakfast.

As they rode the bus to the store and then on to Motel 6, Bre played Minecraft on her phone. In this world, she could build her family a home, with a separate room for her kittens. The garden overlooked the ocean. Daisies blanketed the lawn, where Sharon lived in a hollowed-out birch tree, the stairs made of leaves.

By the time theyreached the motel, her phone had died. Bre returned to her secret plan, mulling it over. It could work, she thought. But she wasnt ready to reveal it to her mother, not yet.

In the room, shepicked upone of her Barbies and pressed the button on her back. The doll was meditation-themed. Take a deep breath, it soothed.Breathein Breathe out Bre fell backward onto the queen-size bed and closed her eyes.

Nine days after the eviction, Bre and her mother were still at the Motel 6.

Her fatherand Little Mama kept watch over the house on East Princeton Avenue,fending off potential burglarsfrom stealing the possessions still locked inside and sleeping in a travel-trailerin Sharons backyard during the day. Sometimes, Brian would bike to the motel Little Mama cradled in one arm to watch a movie and snuggle in bed with his wife and daughter.

At the Motel 6, Bre stuck to her moms advice to always wash her feet before bed, and played with Barbies she brought from the familys former home.

On the last day of March, the Valenzuelas ran out of money for the motel. Danetta and Bre left to be with P.J., who was staying at his girlfriends familys two-bedroom apartment in northeastFresno, near the airport. The mother and daughter slept together on the brocade couch in the living room, Bre often waking at night to the wail of sirens.

She wished they could all stay with Sharon. Bre loved her grandmothers house, with wind chimes and bells on the porch and an avocado tree dropping fruit on the lawn. But the duplex was too cramped for all of them, and too narrow for Bres mother to navigate in her wheelchair.

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Evicted at age 10: Her family was forced out of their home. She just wanted to keep them together - San Francisco Chronicle