We are Californians who moved to Texas after being homeless. We haven’t been here for a year and we can’t wait to go home.

Dannielle: I have moved to Texas twice in the last five years.

Eiman and I are still married, but separated. We are very good friends because we co-parent our 12-year-old daughter. I also have two older children from a previous relationship.

Eiman and I lived in the same apartment building in Riverside, California, for a long time.

Eiman: I really appreciate the convenience of California. Everything was close. There were also many job opportunities, although not the greatest. Plus, you were very close to mountains, close to hiking trails, and close to beaches.

Dannielle: One of the things I loved most about California was the diversity. I met many people from different countries and learned about their cultures, food and ways of life.

But starting in 2019, rising prices in California became more difficult.

I used to work at a health resort. It was a great place to work, but it got to the point where if I missed even one day of work, it would affect my finances a lot.

Money was our main stress. I felt like I couldn’t live my life because the cost of living was so high in California.

Eiman: I worked in warehouses for a while, before I went into security.

I had to get a second job to make ends meet, and that didn’t leave me with any money to take my daughter out to do something fun.

Affordability drew us to Texas

Dannielle: I left California with my daughters for the first time in June 2021. My mother is from Texas. Three years ago, my stepfather retired, and he and my mother moved from Mira Loma, California, to Henderson, Texas.

He said they went to Texas because it was more economical. So, I went online and started searching. The houses were cheap, and big! Everything was really cheap.

We were all happy. My goal was to one day be able to buy my own house.

Eiman and my son couldn’t come to Texas the first time.

At first I went to live with my mother in Henderson, which is East Texas. When we first arrived in Texas, we were impressed by the beautiful nature. There was no smoke, no pollution. It was really good.

My oldest daughter and I started applying for jobs right away because we were looking for our own place to live.

We got jobs, and my daughter and I were working full time. On weekends, we would drive to Tyler, about 30 miles from Henderson, and look at apartments. We knew we wanted to leave Henderson because the demographics are retirees.

But my older daughter started to feel depressed. It was just too much of a change for him. My mother and stepfather are great people, but it was difficult to live with them.

In addition, the weather in Texas is very bad in the summer.

We returned to California a few months later

Dannielle: We returned to Riverside in Fall 2021. We were happy to come home. We were able to resume our old lives very quickly.

Eiman: I missed them when they were in Texas, so I was glad to see them.

But then I faced life problems, and I ended up homeless.

Dannielle: I was hoping that Eiman would have found an apartment when we got back, but he didn’t. So, we stayed with his mother for a few months. But that was also difficult, and my young daughter and I ended up in a shelter.

I was homeless in California before. My family members are homeless there. Rising costs are taking you down. But in California, we had access to resources that helped us get back on our feet.

I was able to get my job back in Riverside and moved back into our old apartment in Spring 2022.

We lived in California for two more years. But at the beginning of this year, my eldest son moved into our apartment, which put the four of us in one bedroom. My oldest daughter and I were always working to pay the bills.

So, I started talking about moving to Texas again because I dreamed of cheap houses and cheap apartments, thinking that life would be easier for all of us.

Eiman: It seemed like an opportunity to live in an inexpensive place, save money, and solve my housing problems for a long time. But that’s not what we have.

We moved to Texas for the second time in April 2024

Dannielle: We all went back to live with my mother in Henderson, Eiman included. We were planning to work and save money to either pay off the house or move into a nice sized apartment. But Eiman and my new father didn’t get along, so we had to rush to find our apartments.

We found an apartment in Tyler. However, the management of things has been difficult.

We pay for all our equipment here, which I never did in California. All of our loans are in arrears because I haven’t been able to find a long-term, full-time job. I am about to lose my car finance.

I have worked two jobs here in Tyler, and they are the worst experiences of my life.

And I haven’t gotten many job interviews here in Tyler. It seems that most jobs are temporary. Also, I went from making about $18 an hour in California to $11 here.

Eiman: We thought everything would be cheaper here in Texas than it was.

We didn’t do our best before we moved

Dannielle: For all the bad things about Texas, there are some good things. Some people really have that Southern charm and are so sweet.

We also met a lot of people who are not from Texas. It’s nice to talk to them and realize that we all have the same problems after moving here.

Nature and fresh air are my favorite things about Texas.

But we don’t really plan to live in Texas. We just want to move back home to California once our lease is up in May.

We’re excited to go back, but we’re also nervous. We want to make sure we have enough money to start over.

But we would rather deal with the high cost of living and be comfortable. I am at home.