Reporter Patty Machelor's Fave Five of 2020

This story is a favorite from this year because, while I was alarmed at this woman’s plight, I was even more impressed by the  dedication of her nephew in helping her find a solution. 

— Patty Machelor

Maebell Mallard’s one wish is to keep her apartment, a modest request for an elderly woman who raised six adopted children by cleaning hotel rooms and selling artwork.

For the last two decades, Mallard, 86, used Section 8 federal funding to rent her one-bedroom home at Mission Tierra Apartments, 5505 S. Mission Road.

Her notice to move came earlier this year, shortly before the pandemic, when the complex was sold to Peak Living, a real estate management company based in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

The sale made Mallard’s federal voucher worthless there.

Her plight is a common one, as  Tucson grapples with rising rents and low vacancies. It’s especially challenging for people who live on fixed incomes and for those like Mallard, who needs wheelchair access and other accommodations as well as a landlord who takes Section 8.

In general, the cost to rent has been going up and vacancies have been going down this year, a trend that’s oddly coupled with many landlords also struggling due to unpaid rent because of job loss, and the federal and state eviction moratoriums.

Mallard was given time to find a new place after the COVID-19 crisis started, but for the last three months she’s tried in vain to find a landlord who will take Section 8.

At the end of October, as it stands right now, her time at Mission Tierra is up.

Read the full story here.

This story is a favorite from this year because I was so relieved to see Emilio Bustmante finally find a new home.

— Patty Machelor

Emilio Bustamante was online teaching fifth graders about rectangular prisms when the constable knocked.

The 47-year-old math and science teacher with Sunnyside Unified School District knew an eviction had been ordered, but on that Monday morning nearly a month ago, he thought he had more time.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey‘s executive order helped Pima County Constable Marge Cummings delay an eviction during the weeks it took Bustamante’s court case to reach its end, but the outcome was still the same: The Bustamante family became homeless during the pandemic because of lost income.

“I was naive I guess,” Bustamante said. “I felt safe, I felt like the order was protecting me and the constable was protecting me, which she was up to that point.”

What he’d needed to avoid the overwhelming stress that ensued, and the eviction now on his record, was simply enough time back at teaching to earn a full paycheck.

But nothing worked in Bustamante’s favor: not the state’s moratorium, not the judge on his case, not the timing of a new federal moratorium and not the system for getting money to cash-strapped landlords.

Bustamante says he applied for rental assistance in June and heard they were eligible in July. He was offered money three days after being evicted.

Without that funding secured, he’d figured he could teach for a couple of weeks and then move, allowing his landlord, an elderly man trying to put his financial affairs in order, to sell the house. That landlord, Paul Hu, declined an interview request for this story.

Looking back, Bustamante now says he can barely grasp how much his life has changed in the last six months, and how it all started when most of his family became sick with the virus that causes COVID-19.

Read the full story here.

This story is a favorite because I know how critical child care is to our community, and I was relieved to let people know more about what was happening to these schools and centers that should never be taken for granted.

— Patty Machelor

Herencia Guadalupana Lab School opened as a tiny operation in June 2014, building up to an enrollment of more than 80 young children this year. Then the coronavirus crisis arrived.

“When this hit, it was the most exciting time,” said the preschool’s owner, Ernestina Fuentes, whose passion is helping impoverished children succeed. “In January and February, we were at capacity for the first time.”

That number quickly dropped from 84 children to five, and the school closed.

“We were devastated,” Fuentes said, “and we were devastated for our children.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended many Pima County preschools and child-care centers, with teachers either out of work or tending to families at high risk of infection while providers who closed wonder if they’ll ever open again.

Statewide, 1,256 schools and centers for young children have closed. That’s nearly half of all Arizona’s licensed providers of early childhood care and education, including public and private preschools, Head Start facilities, in-home providers and child-care centers.

The hardships interrupted some positive changes for Arizona’s working poor families this year, when the state suspended its child-care waiting list after receiving $112 million in federal funds last July. For years leading up to that, many providers had been turning away families that qualified for state assistance because of low reimbursement rates, which hadn’t increased in 18 years.

Gov. Doug Ducey and the state’s Department of Economic Security have made several changes in recent weeks to help providers now hurting from the global health crisis, including continuing state reimbursements even if a center is closed or a qualifying child is not attending.

Ducey’s executive order mandates paying providers whatever reimbursements they were receiving in January, and raises half-day payments to full-day payments.

The changes are part of the federal $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which allocated $3.5 billion to the existing Child Care and Development Block Grant. Out of that, Arizona received $88 million.

Read the full story here.

This story is a favorite of mine because it had such a happy ending: She got home with her husband and called, after they arrived, to let me know. And it was snowing that afternoon up there at their home in British Columbia.

— Patty Machelor

Theresa Masterman has been trying to get her husband out of Tucson and back home to Kelowna, British Columbia, for days now, but the lack of tests for the coronavirus is making it impossible.

Jack Masterman, 89, fell at their Tucson home and was taken to Tucson Medical Center on March 14 after developing pneumonia. There’s been a bed waiting for him at a skilled nursing rehabilitation center near their home in Canada for four days now, but Theresa Masterman can’t get him there because either the air ambulance company or the facility in British Columbia — or both — want a negative test first.

Since her husband does not have any virus symptoms, he’s not a testing priority in the U.S. Theresa Masterman is worried about losing the bed back home and she’s distraught about not being able to visit him since TMC imposed its no-visitor rule.

“I feel that we are being held hostage,” she said. “You’d think they’d do it for inpatient.”

She says she’s been getting “mixed messages” about what’s needed for this to work. She’s called everywhere she can think of in Canada to see if she could get a test sent down, but nothing has materialized.

“I haven’t seen him in five days,” she said. “It’s just horrible.”

Read the full story here.

Housing is such a critical need and this story helped the community learn more about what was happening with federal dollars here in Pima County.

— Patty Machelor

Tucson has over 700 unused Section 8 housing vouchers and a waiting list of 8,543 applicants, as rents here continue to climb and an increasing number of people struggle to afford places to live. No one new has been added to the waiting list since 2016, when the city last stopped taking names for the federal assistance. At the same time, vouchers that became available because people here left the program were not being quickly reassigned.

This is what led to the hundreds of unused vouchers.

The city is working as quickly as possible to address the problem, says Liz Morales, the city’s housing director.

Her department has pulled 600 names from the old waiting list since Morales became director in October. If they can find the person with the old contact information, and the person is eligible, it takes 60 to 90 days to have the voucher issued.

“We’re doing everything we can to get those vouchers into the hands of people who need them,” she said. “I think during the next year, we will be able to demonstrate a lot of progress.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, wants to see cities and municipalities use all of the federal housing vouchers that are made available.

There are currently 5,534 vouchers allocated from HUD for the city of Tucson. Of those, 4,759 are being used, which is about 86% capacity.

“Right now,” Morales said, “our goal is to get to 100%.”

Compounding Tucson’s housing problem: over the last year, the cost for a rental unit in Tucson increased an average of $53 per month, with some rent increases in the hundreds. Some property owners who were taking Section 8 have stopped doing so.

Prices have been going up for a while. In 2014, for example, the average monthly rent in Tucson was just under $640. By the first quarter of 2019, it had jumped to just below $800. By the third quarter of last year, according to Picor Commercial Real Estate Services’ data, it was up to $820.

Read the full story here.