Abrupt change in county's emergency housing leaves families wondering where they can stay

Check-out time at the Motel 6 on Chili Avenue is 11 a.m. The knock at the door came 15 minutes early as a courtesy, but the woman and her daughter were already packed.

Everything they owned, stuffed into a few black garbage or grocery bags; the blankets and quilts stacked neatly. These were the things the woman and her 16-year-old daughter brought with them when they first came to Rochester six weeks ago, seeking to escape a bad situation in Ohio and a worse one before that in Rhode Island.

"They're supposed to help people; instead they put us on the street," the woman said in Spanish. She and her daughter asked that their names not be used because their family members don't know they're homeless.

The Monroe County Department of Human Services (DHS) placed them at the Motel 6 in early June but now had informed them their placement wouldn't be extended.

They were assured another location would be available, but here it was, a few minutes before 11 a.m., and the person from DHS was asking her to call back at 7 p.m. to see if anything was available.

They were running out of people to call for help and the vacuum cleaner in the hallway was getting closer.

Until last week, Motel 6 was the primary hotel where Monroe County could place people who needed emergency housing. Now it is no longer an option, leaving some families like this one without a roof over their heads.

"I guess I'll just sit out (in the parking lot) until 7 o'clock," the woman said. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

Lack of places to stay

The tight housing market in Rochester and elsewhere has been a major problem for people lacking housing altogether. The city's homeless shelter options, particularly for families, are full or mostly full.

"It’s just really tough for anyone to find an apartment, even if you have money," said Connie Sanderson, executive director of Partners Ending Homelessness.

The Motel 6 on Chili Avenue near the airport was one of the key emergency outlets. On July 27, DHS informed homeless service agencies that it would no longer place people there or extend the placements of people already living there.

It is unclear how many families that affected. The county said there are 12 families in need of housing as of Monday afternoon, but before there could be about 50 families staying there at once, the owner, Bisma Khan, said.

The impetus for the county's decision is also unclear. According to several advocates for the homeless, Motel 6, which was sold in March, first told the county it no longer would accept emergency placements.

But Khan said she never ended the contract but rather only lessened the number of rooms available to the county for several days while others were being renovated and cleaned.

Her ultimate goal is to decrease the number of DHS rooms from about 50 down to 30, she said. But once people started losing their placements with nowhere else to go, she said, she offered DHS as many rooms as it needed, but didn't hear back.

In the interim, Khan said she will allow the families that had been placed at the hotel to remain there rent-free.

"I just feel bad for the women who are out in my courtyard with their children who don't know what to do," Khan said. "You can have the whole hotel if you want. Right now these people really need DHS's help, and I'm available to provide it."

The unsanitary conditions at the motel, however, were more than could be addressed in a week.

The woman and her daughter had two full cockroach traps in her hotel room, one by the window and one in the bathroom, as well as photographs of numerous bedbugs on the sheets. There were stains on most of the surfaces and a rusty buildup in and around the bathtub.

This was the fifth different room they'd occupied in the motel, they said, and they all had the same problems.

"It's dirty everywhere," the daughter said. "There's always some kind of smell and some trash on the floor."

Monroe County spokesman Gary Walker declined to make anyone from DHS available for an interview.

"Monroe County has had ongoing concerns with the sanitary conditions at Motel 6 and no longer will place our clients in that facility," he said in a statement Monday afternoon after this story was published. "The relocation of the 12 remaining families to safe and appropriate housing will be complete by Friday of this week without exception."

In a message to homeless service providers on Thursday, though, the county cited "a shortage in available rooms/space" as the reason for the change. It recommended "friend or relative resources," but said that otherwise it would find "an appropriate shelter placement."

The woman and her daughter have no friend or relative resources. They only came to Rochester because this is where their car ran out of gas. They spent their first night in town sleeping in their car in a McDonald's parking lot, then were placed at the Motel 6 the following day.

Now it was past check-out time. The daughter passed their belongings to her mother through the open first-floor window. The sheer curtain was ripped off, with scraps of fabric hanging from curtain rings. It started to rain.

Almost an hour after they were required to vacate the Motel 6, the family connected with the Father Tracy Advocacy Center, a service provider on North Clinton Avenue. There they had better prospect of finding another place to stay.

After that, they're not sure. The woman said she found a job cleaning offices downtown but said she couldn't take it and still keep her housing benefits. Her daughter enrolled for 11th grade at Monroe High School but she, too, is ready to work.

"Of course we'll both work," she said, passing a shoebox through the window to her mother. "We just need to leave this place first."

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Monroe County stops placing homeless at Motel 6 in Rochester NY