Redding man finally finds a home for Christmas

James Box doesn’t have a lot of furniture, just what he said he needs to make himself comfortable: A bed, table and chairs and a few other essentials. Now that he has a home he can call his own, he says he's content.

Thanksgiving 2023 was the Redding man’s first since he moved into Lauren Glen Apartments, a community in north Redding, nearly a year ago. Before that, without a permanent place to stay, he'd moved around from hotel to hotel for 18 months.

Although now he has his own place to hang his cowboy hat, Box spent much of Thanksgiving Day at a friend’s house, watching scary movies.

They watched Christmas movies after that. Combining the two, “you expect something to jump out during the Christmas movies,” he said, laughing.

The 64-year-old receives disability payments after a stroke paralyzed his left side eight years ago. Since then, he’s worked hard to get as much of his mobility back as possible.

While he still walks with a limp, he has no intention of losing his hard-won mobility. “I use a cane, not a scooter. I walk two miles a day to keep my blood pressure low,” he said.

But it has been a tough decade for the former plaster and stucco mason.

“After my stroke at 56, I couldn’t work anymore. There are people who want to work, but can’t, you know. If I could work, I sure would,” he said.

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Soaring rents, home prices leave some Californians homeless

Box isn't the only Shasta County resident who's recently had trouble securing safe and affordable housing.

By the time California lawmakers lifted most remaining COVID restrictions in February 2022, more than two million households statewide reported facing some degree of housing hardship: Trouble paying rent, making mortgage payments or covering medical expenses, according to the California Budget and Policy Center research nonprofit.

Homelessness and home insecurity similar to what Box experienced continued in 2023, although it's difficult to pinpoint how many Shasta County residents are affected annually. A one-day official snapshot in late January found 1,013 home-insecure people were living in Shasta County ― either in a temporary shelter or on the street ― on that single night.

From July 2022 to June 2023, 1,812 people sought help from the Good News Rescue Mission, Shasta County's largest shelter for the homeless, said Development Director Justin Wandro. The number from that organization also doesn't reflect the total count of people living locally in unstable housing, Wandro said, because other Shasta County nonprofits and programs help people who never visit the mission.

And recent research has found that seniors are California's fastest-growing age group experiencing homelessness, with more than 40% of older homeless individuals first becoming homeless after age 50 as their fixed incomes increasingly lag behind increases in housing and other costs, according to data from California's Homeless Data Integration System.

Despite the widespread but incorrect belief that homeless people move here from other states, at least 90% of California's homeless adults became homeless while living in California, according to a study published by the U.C. San Francisco in 2023. Statewide, more than 171,000 people experience homelessness daily, mostly due to rental and home prices soaring out of people's reach, the UCSF study said.

Just two crises away from homelessness

Housed or not, stereotypes persist, Box said.

When he goes out for his daily walks, he said he gets stares of disapproval, much like he did when he was between homes and doing his best to keep a hotel roof over his head.

“A lot of people ended up homeless” due to inflation and during the COVID pandemic shutdown, Box said. “When you see someone," don't be judgemental, he urged. “We’re all brothers and sisters.”

Box was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and was still a child when his family moved to Southern California in 1967. “It was the first year it snowed in Escondido in 20 years. We thought the snow was following us from Michigan,” Box said.

Box eventually settled in the North State in 2005, living in Mountain Gate while traveling to do plaster and stucco work, he said.

After his stroke, he said he trained hard to gain back some of his mobility. “If you can’t do something, you have to keep” working at it “until you can," Box said. "If you can’t stand up out of your La-Z-Boy, you have to keep” trying, he said.

About a year after his stroke, Box's life took another unexpected turn.

Already once a widower, Box said his second wife died after coming down with necrotizing fasciitis bacteria, "that flesh-eating disesase."

With little income and his four adult sons spread around the country, Box went to live with his daughter in Southern California.

As his health improved and he regained some of his mobility, a friend asked Box to return to the North State and rent a room in their house. Box said he was eager to return to Redding. But that move in 2021 didn’t go well because his roommate had a drug habit and an aggressive dog, he said.

Still partially paralyzed, Box moved from one inexpensive hotel to another for a year a half, he said, while he waited for a low-income apartment to open up at the Lauren Glen apartments.

How do you pack up your life to move from place to place for more than a year? With a “big-ass suitcase with wheels,” he said.

Many of his hotel neighbors were workers from out of town. Most people came and went, making it hard to forge friendships with them, Box said.

Box got the good news he had an apartment in December 2022, just in time for New Year’s Eve.

Now he has neighbors. Once a month they meet for games and crafts, he said.

In his free time, Box reads and takes walks. Often, he walks with friends.

Having a home is no guarantee people won’t still stereotype, he said.

“We walk everywhere. People look at us like we’re homeless because we’re walking,” in part because “I walk with a limp," Box said.

So he changes the paradigm.

“I put on my cowboy hat, and it changes their whole attitude” about me. They “call me 'sir,'” Box said.

Keeping optimistic, Box hasn’t given up on working while writing song lyrics and hoping to get into standup comedy.

Gathering during the holidays isn’t something his family does much anymore, he said. His kids are grown and have their own children. His daughter moved to Colorado from Southern California.

So Box plans a quiet Christmas — at home.

Not having someplace permanent to live is beyond the control of many people, Box said, so you just do the best you can.

“Every second you make a decision, you just try to make the right one,” he said.

Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Why do people end up homeless? Here's one Redding man's story.