For more on Francesca see The Bitch at the Welfare Office. 

Francesca Gets the Keys

“I’m getting the keys to my place tomorrow,” Francesca texted, decorating the message with happy emojis and a shiny crown. Over the years I’ve known her, Francesca — now in her mid-fifties — has been dependent on others for a place to stay. Sometimes she moves in with a man. These arrangements typically begin with Francesca falling in love, sure she has found a man who “truly cares about me”, “tells me I am beautiful,” and “treats me like a queen”. For a few months or even a year or two she’s delighted to be the “wifey” and relishes cooking, cleaning, and decorating the house for holidays. Sometimes she stays with women friends, sleeping on the couch in return for providing housework, food stamps and childcare. Francesca loves being called “Ma” and often takes on the lion’s share of caring for a child with autism, chronic illness or behavioral challenges.  

In all these situations, Francesca knows she can be told to leave on a moment’s notice when the person who holds the lease becomes annoyed about anything, or just changes their mind about Francesca staying with them. The men sometimes begin to stalk, abuse, or harass her, claiming that that she is cheating on them. Or they stop making any pretense of loving or caring about her – no more compliments, just insults and complaints. The women friends sometimes decide that Francesca is not contributing enough money to household expenses or tell her to leave because their boyfriends don’t want Francesca around or because a closer friend or relative needs the couch.

But at last Francesca has the key to “my own place” in which she isn’t dependent on the good will and good mood of a boyfriend, a friend, or a friend’s boyfriend. Francesca sends me photos: It’s a simple single room with a twin bed, bureau, lamp, and desk. Clean but austere. Reminiscent of a dorm room in a seminary.

Looking Back

I can’t help but remember the first time I met Francesca; it was fifteen years ago at a multi-service center for homeless women. Brimming with self-confidence she told me that her current unhoused situation is just temporary, that her goal is to “own a house, have a dog and my two boys with me” and that she aimed to make that happen within five years at the most. Over the ensuing years she tried to turn that dream into reality. She started countless jobs but each fell through due to an accident or to a flare-up of injuries inflicted by her former husband or to her CORI (criminal record) or to a boss who exploited or hit on her. She signed up on countless housing lists, was assessed by numerous caseworkers, yet remained unhoused. Cycling through repeated iterations of couch surfing, her dream of having her boys with her grew into a dream of having her granddaughters with her.

Francesca’s plight exemplifies one of the many problems with our housing policies. Housing status in the United States generally follows a binary classification in which individuals are either housed or homeless. Priority for subsidized housing is given to people who can prove they are homeless, typically through documentation from a homeless shelter. On the surface a sensible policy, the housing / homeless dichotomy does not reflect the actual fluctuations of life circumstances faced by millions of families and individuals working part-time or seasonal jobs in our gig economy. Nor does it meet the needs of someone like Francesca whose superb social skills helped her survive by keeping her out of crowded homeless shelters – many of which became death traps during COVID — but constrained her to the couch surfing circuit.

The Day After Getting The Keys

Francesca calls with panic in her voice. She’s in her new place but having stayed with friends and boyfriends for two decades she does not have bedding, towels, soap, a fork, knife or spoon, broom, can-opener — none of which she can afford to purchase. Last night, she tells me, she bunched up some clothes to serve as a pillow and wore her warmest jacket to lie down on the bare mattress. The only food she had was a packet of blueberry muffins someone gave her. Cold and hungry, she asks if I know anyone or any agency that could help her get supplies.

A few days later I’d rounded up some basic food and furnishings and go with a friend to bring them to Francesca. Pulling up at the address she’d given us, we see her standing on the sidewalk looking annoyed. It turns out that her “place” is an SRO (single room occupancy) in a building housing a few hundred homeless and marginalized women, some escaping domestic violence, some mentally ill, some simply poor and alone. We start to unload boxes from the car and try to help her carry in the goods. “You can’t come in,” she tells us. “No visitors allowed. Not even my [adult] kids or granddaughters.” My friend and I stand on the sidewalk while Francesca makes several trips laden with bedding, cleaning and cooking supplies and a few days’ worth of canned and packaged food.

A Week Later

Francesca is increasingly unhappy. She explains that the room is not what she wanted. (I think to myself that it’s not what any middle-aged person would want.) The narrow twin bed proclaims that women struggling with housing do not deserve to share a bed with a partner; that giving up on love and romance is the price for a safe place to sleep. The communal bathrooms located on each floor make it clear that women without financial resources are not entitled to privacy – or even to the “luxury” of a convenient bathroom for the middle-of-the-night bladder needs common among women of Francesca’s (and my) age. The no visitors policy precludes cooking for children and grandchildren, something Francesca has has always loved to do. She tells me that she doesn’t need any more kitchen supplies as she has no plans to use the shared kitchen in the building.

A few days later she texts: “This place is out of control. Residents with mental health problems acting out all over the place. I’m grateful [for the room] but it’s causing anxiety.”

Looking Forward

The contrast between Francesca’s dream home and the monastic-style single room in the SRO makes me sad. No kids, no dog, no control over who can or cannot come in.

I ask Francesca if having this room will help or hurt her chances of getting what she calls “regular housing.” (Depending upon the agency, accepting an SRO can be an opportunity to ‘prove’ that you are able to manage an apartment OR it can knock you off the subsidized housing eligibility list because you are no longer homeless.) Francesca responds, “I’m not sure. Good question.” That’s it.

I’m taken aback by this answer. Francesca always knows the angles, always has a plan. Is her response an expression of defeat on the part of a woman I have long admired for her resourcefulness, resilience, and bravado? Has she finally given up, acknowledging that she no longer attracts men who see her fifty-five year old body and face as “beautiful”? (Indeed, the most recent boyfriend made it clear that he only wanted her as an unpaid live-in housekeeper; he did not want to sleep with her, a situation Francesca found just as hurtful as her earlier experiences of men who only wanted her for sex.) Or maybe she found that her middle-aged body can’t handle months of sleeping on a couch or on the floor of a friend’s apartment, waking up at the crack of dawn when the baby cries or in the middle of the night when the friend’s boyfriend or husband staggers in looking for someone to blame for his problems?

Has Francesca finally met her match in the ageism that constrains so many women to the invisible margins of society?

Stay tuned.

See also Daisy: Aging on the Margins