Mohammed sheltered in a tent with his dog on the edge of woods behind a movie theater. He could hear cheers at Richmond’s nearby baseball stadium and see a neighborhood, just across a busy road, transforming through rapid apartment construction. Months earlier, he had received a voucher that could enable him to live in one of those buildings. But his wait kept growing longer. In the middle of a thriving city, Mohammed remained in need of a home.

A veteran, Mohammed had struggled with mental health. For a time, he had lived with his girlfriend. But when her finances took a turn and she fell behind on rent, her landlord asked her to leave — and she asked Mohammed for space while working to get back on her feet. Mohammed would also have to move.

Some months earlier, Mohammed had seen a friend panhandling. He asked his girlfriend if he could invite his friend to sleep on their back porch — the apartment was small — and she had agreed. When the apartment went away, “my friend and I,” Mohammed told us, “we buddied up.”

It was winter. Mohammed and his friend shared a small tent. They asked passersby for money and took odd jobs. They bought a larger tent. Mohammed bought a bike. Spring came.

Michael Lynn, a social worker with Commonwealth Catholic Charities, visited the tent one day. He asked how the two had come to live there and promised to do what he could to help.

Michael guided Mohammed in applying for a Housing Choice Voucher — essentially a coupon, part of the federal government’s largest source of housing aid, to make a rental home more affordable. Months passed.

The voucher finally arrived the following February, but so did a denial from Mohammed’s first rental application. Catholic Charities put him in touch with Briggitte Cordes, a housing counselor at HOME of VA who specializes in finding quality, safe, and stable rentals for voucher recipients. Mohammed had done his homework, finding a building he liked while riding his bike one day and then learning that it offered an all-inclusive rate. Transitioning to living in proper housing again would be easier, he reckoned, if he had fewer bills to juggle. The monthly rent was within the voucher’s limit, and with Briggitte’s help, Mohammed applied again.

And again, he was denied. The property manager incorrectly asserted that Mohammed needed to prove he earned income at a multiple of the monthly rent. In fact, voucher recipients must prove only that they can afford the portion of the rent not covered by their voucher. And in Mohammed’s case, the voucher would cover his rent in full.

This brought Emily Newsom, one of our fair housing investigators, onto the case. She worked with HOME of VA staff attorney Moriah Wilkins to explain the law to the property management company and compel them to reconsider Mohammed’s application. “Emily put in a lot of hard work,” he said.

“Emily put in a lot of hard work. And I know Briggitte is there for me.”  —HOME of VA colleagues Emily Newsom and Briggitte Cordes were critical to Mohammed’s success

Mohammed had picked his tent site, away from areas where people might walk by, because he worried about someone startling his dog, who is deeply loyal. “I’m rarely without her,” he told us. His dog, a caseworker affirmed, qualified as an emotional support animal — a point our team had to make as the property manager looked to             charge a pet fee. (Fair housing law prohibits pet fees for support animals.) Nearly three months had passed since Mohammed’s first application and nearly five months since receiving his voucher. He was making progress, but remained unhoused.

Additional HOME staff got involved. When finally all forms and questions seemed to be answered, the property manager noted that Mohammed would need to purchase renters’ insurance — an unaffordable requirement for him. Catholic Charities stepped up with a commitment to pay Mohammed’s insurance premium every month while also covering his security deposit. With that, at last, he moved in.

The day we caught up with Mohammed, a storm was approaching. “But today,” he reflected, “I didn’t have to ask myself, ‘Is the tarp secure? Are the winds going to be too strong?’” He said he had seen the property manager that morning and asked her a different sort of question: “Do we have a generator?” Mohammed paused. “And we do.”

The journey home is long for many of our clients. For Mohammed, finding safe, stable housing required the efforts of a half-dozen staff across HOME of VA and collaboration with Commonwealth Catholic Charities. Our advocacy included repeatedly pushing a property manager to simply follow the law. In today’s tight housing market, with countless potential renters around every corner, landlords have a heavy upper hand. Something has to give, and often it’s justice. But not this time.