My Homeless Story : Year 1 out of 4
By: Samantha Boc
Tags: Life Stories, Money, Dementia, Teens, Homeless

My Homeless Story : Year 1 out of 4

The Day A Rat Ate Our Money

My name is Samantha Boc and I used to be homeless for 4 years. I was 14 years old when I first became homeless and I was turning 18 when I finally got to know how it felt to have a kitchen again. Today, I will share the first out of four traumatizing homeless years of my life.

Imagine being a 14 year old kid who has just lost their mother, then your father, and then you lose your home. Well, let me tell you now, it wasn’t pretty.

When I was 14, I was kicked out to the curb along with my 23 year old sister and my 54 year old father a day after Thanksgiving. My mother had just passed away that March and my father had lost all his will to go on after her death. My father developed dementia and he has never been the same. Of course at that time, my sister and I did not know it was dementia since it was so early. We thought it was depression and grief. With my father being incapable of working and my mother’s funeral expenses, our family was evicted from our apartment.

So, did this mean we were on the streets? No, not exactly. Before tragedy hit our family, my father was an upholster and he had his own workshop that he got back in ’99. Do you see where this is going?

My father of course hadn’t paid rent for his workshop in months, but what else can a father do to keep his daughters off the streets? He and my sister made a game plan back then that we would temporarily live at his workshop until we would get evicted from there too. And after? Well, they didn’t exactly get to that part in the plan. But, sure enough. Their little game plan did work after all.

We lived in my father’s workshop for more than a year.

Now let me tell you, this year of living at my father’s work will always be the reason for all of my PTSD. Imagine living in a small square for more than a year with no bathroom, no kitchen, no shower, no beds, no light, and a hole in the roof. My sister and I slept on a table. My father slept on three dining chairs connected. This is also where a really big fear of mine was born. The rats. There were so many rats running up and down. At night when we would try to sleep, all you would hear is the small squeaks and the sound of them crunching on our chips. The screams of my sister when one ran down her leg will always haunt me.

My Dad’s Workshop (Our Bed at Bottom Left)

Now, all of this was really bad, but I think the worst part of all was two things. The first, it was being that I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody that I lived in my father’s workshop. Not my school, not the teachers, and not even to my best friend. My sister was scared that they would take me away if child services found out and honestly I was scared too. My sister was (and still is) the only person I had because my dad was starting to get worse with every coming day. I don’t think my school would taken it easily if I told them my dad was going insane, I was homeless, and I slept on table. I remember I tried so hard to be “normal” at school so no one would catch on. The lies I created and told my friends when they wanted to come over to my house or take the bus home with me was unbelievable.

Now, the second fear was just as bad. Not knowing when it would happen. I remember the first three months I was absolutely terrified. Will the police come today? Or tomorrow? What if they take me away? Where would we go? It was scary, but I calmed down after a bit once I noticed that no one had came yet. My father had said the landlord lived in New York and not in Los Angeles, so this is the reason why we lasted so long in his workshop. My anxiety returned when we got the eviction notice about eight months in. It was just a matter of waiting, but they never came until February 13, 2018.

I got the text message from my sister after school. She said that the police came and kicked us out, so to meet her up somewhere else. A part of me was grateful that I wasn’t home when we got evicted, or I’m sure that would have messed me up pretty bad.

So, now what?

Now, we were on the streets.

My Homeless Story: Year 2 out of 4 will be posted soon or may already be posted so please make sure to check it out if you enjoy reading about my sad life story? Everything told in this story is true and all pictures were taken by me. If you would like real live updates over my sad life story then make sure to check out and follow my Instagram at samantha.boc

Thank You!