Out into the cold

WASILLA — As the snow piles up and the temperature drops, Terry Ash worries she might not last the winter.

Ash said she has been a resident of the Amber Ridge Apartments on Via Tranquilla Drive for about four years now, living in an upstairs unit with her service dog, Sadie. Ash said she originally got the husky mix for “a mental health issue,” but discovered that the dog was also trained to help manage her diabetes and sleep apnea.

Sadie was a great help, Ash said, but she couldn’t solve every problem. Ash has also suffered from sarcoidosis — an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in multiple organs, but primarily affects the lungs — since 1997, and was bound to a wheelchair for some time. Between that and 35 years of working as an IT consultant, sitting still in front of a computer, Ash now deals with chronic back pain that has only increased as she’s aged, she said.

To try and alleviate her mobility struggles, Ash asked to move to a ground-floor apartment at Amber Ridge. She was told she would have to pay $500 for the move, which was later lowered to $200, she said. The next day, before Ash had had time to determine if she could afford the change, the assistant manager called to say the manager had asked her to put an eviction notice on Ash’s door.

“I said, ‘What for? What are the violations? What are the solutions listed on there to take?’ And she said there weren’t any,” Ash said.

On Sept. 20, a piece of paper with the words “30 Day Notice to Quit” typed at the top was taped to her door.

“You are notified that your rental agreement is terminated effective 10/31/2016. You must vacate on or prior to that date. Additionally, you will be responsible for your 10/2016 rental payment which must be received on or before 10/1/2016.

“This notice provides you with a 30- DAY NOTICE TO QUIT as required by law,” the paper reads, signed by manager Irina Palmer.

Unable to reach Palmer after that point, Ash said she began calling around to see what her options were. The Wasilla AHFC office told her Amber Ridge was no longer on their list of housing units that accept vouchers, but couldn’t say why.

Palmer said Amber Ridge does technically accept housing vouchers, but is “not set up to do direct deposit,” and can only accept check payments. She said that since the AHFC recently changed its payment policy to direct deposit, Amber Ridge has had to stop accepting the vouchers.

AHFC Director of Public Affairs Stacy Schubert said in an email that the change was made on June 20, 2014, “following an administrative review.”

“Electronic deposits are less expensive for us and require fewer staff hours to process, and eliminates chances of human error because payment is consistently delivered each month,” Schubert explained.

However, “AHFC does not prohibit Alaskans who hold Housing Choice Vouchers from using theirs at Amber Ridge provided they meet the requirements,” she wrote in another email.

Requirements include a landlord’s signature on AHFC’s Request for Tenancy Approval and the unit’s clearance of AHFC’s bi-yearly Housing Quality Standard inspections.

Ash said she has paid for her housing at Amber Ridge with vouchers from Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) since she moved in. The renewable voucher has allowed her to rent that apartment for $305 a month, with the remaining $530 subsidized by AHFC.

The unit she’s lived in has, to her knowledge, met the required inspections, though it hasn’t been without issue.

“I was homeless before I moved in here, and I was really grateful, but the first winter there was like no heat in here,” Ash said. “I was dressing inside like I was outside.”

She said AHFC spent more than two years urging Amber Ridge to have a new boiler installed before it was done.

But those kinds of problems would be tolerable, she said, if she were allowed to stay.

Instead, she’s been frantically searching for a new place to live that will not only take her voucher — which expires on Nov. 29, and can only be used for long-term housing, she said — but allow her to stay in Wasilla, close to her pulmonologist and her doctors at Algone Pain Clinic.

She can’t live in Palmer, she said, due to the poor air quality and its effect on her lungs. She can’t live in Houston, she said, because of “personal spiritual beliefs.”

She doesn’t want to move back to Anchorage either, she said, because she “left there for certain reasons,” and her daughter lives here.

Ash said she’s contacted various homelessness prevention agencies, one of which gave her eight pages of information for potentially available housing, none of which could ultimately accommodate all her needs.

Ash doesn’t have a car either, and can’t afford transportation by MASCOT or taxi on a regular basis. Her doctors said she may have to start using an oxygen tank and tube again at night, and Sadie won’t be able to wake her up if she stops breathing anymore.

About a week after an in-home interview with Ash, Sadie passed away, having apparently eaten something poisonous, Ash said.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” she said, holding back tears.

Update, 10/28: Ash said she has been granted a temporary stay in her apartment due to medical concerns, but was told by her landlord to move out as quickly as possible.