‘Would sit in my car and cry’: Thousands living in extended-stay hotels, report finds

The line can be so thin between those staying at apartments and extended-stay hotels.

But for the more than 4,000 living in hotels, they often ended up there because they couldn’t afford the upfront cost of an apartment but now find themselves paying more.

For many families, an extended-stay hotel can be a shelter of last resort.

“You’re trying to provide, but it’s just not enough,” Arilya Romero said.

She knows firsthand. She turned to an extended-stay after her rent went up and a contract job disappeared.

“I also wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be a burden on others,” Romero said.

But what was meant to be temporary became a nightmare.

“You’re in this one room with others, your family, and it would be times where I would and sit in my car and cry,” she said.

She spent more than she ever had on rent, taking two jobs to scrape by.

“It was just getting more and more like I was not getting ahead,” Romero said.

“It was a very heavy burden on me to try to give some sense of stability to my family,” she said.

And she isn’t alone.

A Georgia State University survey found in DeKalb County, there were 4,600 people staying in extended-stay hotels long term, and they reported spending 77% of their income on rent.

“That families are paying so much in motels, they can’t save any money,” said Joy Monroe with the Single Parent Alliance and Resource Center.

She says families can feel trapped, caught paying more in monthly rent at a hotel, while not being able to save up even enough for a safety deposit.

“It should be an oxymoron when you say working homeless, but it’s not,” Monroe said. “So you’re not living, you’re not thinking, you’re not dreaming, you’re not planning. Your whole focus is on survival.”

So she worked with Motel to Home, a program that tries to lower barriers to apartment living, like paying safety deposits.

“And through the seven nonprofit agencies, we’ve successfully housed over 3,000 families,” Monroe said.

The program was life-changing for Romero, helping her get her own place.

But she knows that without help, how thin the margin can be between a hotel and a home.

“As easy as it is to get in, it could be just as easy to lose it,” Romero said.

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