What is it like to raise a family
when you have no home? - When you get $4 or $5, $6
above minimum wage and you still can't find
an affordable place to live, something is wrong. - Hmm? No.
- No? - No one in America
should have to work 40 hours a week and not be able to afford
to live in the place that they work. Yay! [Cheers] We are the orphans of the American Dream. I'm in ZIP code 35810
in Huntsville, Alabama. The U.S.' cheapest city from 2021 to 2022. Rent here surged 21%
since the pandemic began. With companies at the center
of the billion-dollar arms industry based here, aerospace and technology are fueling
Rocket City's hot jobs market, pumping in out-of-state residents. It's one of the reasons why this affordable place isn't cheap enough for so many. - This is my cabinet. - Oh OK, so a lot of canned goods.
I see a lot of beans. Chef Boyardee. Obviously,
you have four kids. - Yeah. [Laughs] Bethany Simmons is giving me
a tour of New Futures, the homeless shelter
where she lives with her husband, Houston, and their four children: Adrian, Zachary, Dalton and 8-month-old Ruby. That's fair. That's fair. I was trying
to get you to grab my finger. How does it feel to be making more money
than you've made in your entire life and yet find yourself without housing? It's exciting to make money,
but it's also really frustrating at the same time,
just because all of the people that make less than I do,
where are they living at? And if you can't afford
to live in the city that you work in, then you won't be staying there
to work for very much longer. Bethany is originally
from Nashville, Tennessee, which is two hours
north of Huntsville. Rocketing housing costs
priced her out of her hometown. Rent there rose 18%
in the first quarter of 2020. So she and her family moved
to Huntsville last November, hoping for higher wages, cheaper
living and economic stability. - Cost of living was probably
the biggest driving factor for, for deciding where we should go
because we want to be able to live somewhere that's
going to be sustainable in the long run. Nashville is outgrowing
its citizens at this point. They're drawing in so much,
so much business and so much commerce and it's great for a city to grow,
but you can't push out the residents that you already have to make room
for more growth. That doesn't- that seems
counterintuitive. Right now, there's not a single county,
metro area or state in the U.S. where a minimum-wage earner
can afford a two-bedroom apartment. Huntsville's rank as the cheapest city
is based on comparisons of the percentage of median household
income that goes toward lodging. - This is the car that got us all here. As you can see, there is not
a lot of space for six people in there. And you see the hatch is small. So we didn't get to bring
a whole bunch of stuff with us. - And also the thought of six people
maybe having to live in here. Yeah. How have you been able to afford things
like gas at this time? Well, I started working within two weeks
of landing here. Other residents would pay me
to, like, do their chores. I think my first two weeks here,
I think I made like maybe 60 or 70 bucks? Not a whole lot,
but enough to put gas in the car. Bethany's family was one night away
from being forced to live in their SUV when they arrived in Huntsville. We had nothing left. What little we did have quickly depleted
while we were staying in hotels and also trying to feed ourselves. After I paid the hotel
bill, I had $3 left the day that New Futures
called me back. In a city where the cost of living is 5.1%
lower than the national average, Huntsville saw a 1.3% increase last year. Housing costs are skyrocketing nationwide. But this city of 215,000 people has some of the
country's steepest increases nationally. Huntsville's housing
crisis isn't a job crisis. In March, the state had a less than 3%
unemployment rate, which was lower than the national rate. Alabama's and the nation's
housing emergency are the result
of a housing supply shortage. But the shortage isn't accidental. It's the result of years of deliberate
economic policies doing things like limiting
the types of homes that can be constructed,
and where they can be built. These exclusionary laws were always
intended to disproportionately affect people of color
and the lowest wage earners. affect people of color
and the lowest wage earners. - I don't qualify to rent a place
based on my income. When you go to an apartment,
they require you to make three times the income and to have no evictions, good background check and over a 570
credit score — on some places. Other places are more strict. A lot of these places, they require you
to make three times the rent. And if it's, like, $1,100, say, even if you make 2.7,
they still won't qualify you. - How much were you making?
2.7. Carmen Gallegos moved into the RiahRose Home
for Children with her young son
a week ago. This shelter serves
only pregnant women and single mothers. Carmen moved from Utah a year ago
to join a prophetic church here. Initially, she signed a short-term lease,
but found her financial expectations weren't matching her reality. The lease was for $875 and then it rocked up to it
changing every month. I mean, one month
it was like $975, the second month
it was like $990 and then the third month
it was like $1,100. And so they were including, like,
these little charges, like pest control fees, trash fees,
water fees, things that I didn't know initially that they didn't charge me
for the first month. So to me, it just seemed like
they were trying to find things to charge me for. - What's the thing that most women need
when they come here that they don't have? Oh, you know what? Underwear. Carolyn Jackson birthed RiahRose along with her husband
because they wanted to give back. Today, I watched the retired educator
accept one new mother seeking shelter and turn down another because by
then she had no more rooms available. - And I do apologize for
the refrigerator making the noise. We need a refrigerator.
[Laughs] - What do you make sure
to have in each living space?
- OK. Everyone that comes in
is going to receive sheets and blankets. They're also going to receive
a mattress cover to go on their bed
and pillows and pillow covers. We also have other items,
let's see here, such as toothbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. Just a whole bag of stuff. We have more people coming in. In fact, about, I'd say, 60% of the people who come to RiahRose at this
time are from out of state. When I first met you and I told you
that I was doing this story on what it's like to be homeless
in the cheapest city in the nation, you laughed,
[Laughs] and I'm wondering why you laughed? Well, I don't think that, that Huntsville
is the cheapest city in the nation. Huntsville's per capita
income is less than $37,000. Affordable rent for
that is less than $1,000 monthly. But because the city's rent average
is more than that, $73 a month could be the difference
between housing and homelessness. Sorry, excuse me. - What's it like being a stay-at-home
parent in a transitional housing facility? It is exhausting, to say the least. It is... it's fine. You know,
we have peace here. The kids play, they enjoy it here. They have more structure than they've had for quite a while actually. [Crying]
- Aw, are you tired? Yes! Good job, Adrian! Oh, oh no.
[Laughs] Houston and Bethany trade off employment
based on who can earn more. In the last two weeks, Bethany's
fast-food earnings increased from her starting wage
of $12.10 an hour to $14, both of which are much more
than the state's $7.25 minimum wage. And Bethany expects to receive another
raise now that she's on a management track. - How has this experience affected
the relationship between the two of you? It has made it better. - I agree. I think that we've become a lot closer since we got here
because we've had an opportunity to sit back, just the two of us,
and put together a plan. OK, what should we do?
What do we need to do? You know, and we have rules here
that we have to follow. But other than following the rules,
you know, this is not something, nobody's going to knock on
your door tomorrow and say, "OK, you got to get out." Bethany and Houston have spent much of their marriage
dealing with housing insecurity. When was the last time
you all had your names on a lease? When Adrian was 4,
we rented a little small trailer in, like, one of the worst
trailer parks ever. The trailer was a 1950s model. It was 10 feet wide. It was 40 feet long, so 400 square feet. We were paying $900 a month. - This is the most room
we've ever had to cohabitate. You know, the children
have their own room, everything else. When staying with her family,
we were all crammed into one room about half the size, all four of us. Of the many challenges these parents face
raising their family in a shelter, they say sharing a communal kitchen
and raising their children in such close proximity to others
are two of the most difficult. - I've had to explain that
to Adrian a few times. Well, even if so-and-so does like to run up and down
the hallways with their tablet, we're not going to do that
because Mommy doesn't allow that. So I think the other kids have also kind
of looked at what other kids are doing. Oh, well they do this? Well, sorry, they do that,
but we, we don't do that. New Futures and RiahRose
are two of at least five homeless shelters in Huntsville. The city anticipates
a rise in its homeless population. And Governor Kay Ivey pledged
$2.8 million last October to address the issue statewide. Half a million of those funds
is dedicated to Huntsville. Bethany and her family
were able to move into their own home because they received a coveted
housing voucher subsidizing rent. It came from the Emergency
Rental Assistance Program, which is funded through
federal COVID relief bills. The aid required her to find a place
in no more than 60 days. - It's not extravagant. It's not luxurious,
but it is an opportunity to get on our own feet
and have our own space and raise our kids how we see fit. It's been years since
I've had to think about interior design. What color do I want my living room? Like, these are things that I haven't
had to think about in a long time. The amount of peace
that this has brought me has been phenomenal. Like, I have become
a different person since moving. Stress has a way of unwinding you I mean, just down to your core. The voucher has made
this possible, but not easy. The rate fluctuates based on income. If Bethany makes more, she'll pay
a larger portion of the housing cost. Right now, her out-of-pocket
cost is a third of the rent. She can have this assistance for life
and it's not limited to use in subsidized housing projects. But the difficulty comes in finding a
landlord willing to accept it as payment. Many won't. - It's nice to be able
to have yourself financially secure to where when my kids
ask me for something, "OK, baby. I can go get it." And I don't have to worry about,
OK, what am I gonna not buy so I can buy Adrian's shoes? - I finally get to live in
an actual house that is ours. I've never had a house to ourselves. - Can a city truly be cheap or inexpensive
if some people can't afford housing? America as a whole,
it has a housing problem. And the housing problem
is not going away. And ignoring it is not making it go away. More affordable housing needs to be built. And right now, even with opening up
shelters, there's a lot of people who want to say, oh, well,
not in my backyard — I don't want a shelter next to me
or I don't want a shelter next to me. Where exactly do
you think you're going to put people? It's got to be next to somebody. - I heard you're 8 months old now. How's that going? That's, that's about how I thought. Who do they say that she looks like more? Because to me, she looks like...
