When rent went from $900 to $1,250, single mother forced into affordable housing search

When Kristy Receveur was looking for a place to live after a divorce, she and her daughter moved to a duplex on Park Square Drive.

It was in a low-income neighborhood and not as nice as the middle-class home they had left. "It was run down, a piece of crap," she said. There were police sirens at night and more crime than she expected when she signed the lease.

"There was a man hiding in our bushes one night, and then the SWAT team was out there another time to arrest a guy," she said. "It was crazy."

It was also cheap living in Bloomington, where finding a decent two-bedroom apartment or rental house for less than $1,000 a month is a challenge.

Places to live:Less than 10% of rentals in Bloomington are under $1,000 a month. Here's a few of them.

According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, renters in the Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area struggle more with high-cost burdens than renters in any other area in the state.

In Bloomington, nearly six in 10 renters are classified as cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. And nearly four in 10 are severely cost burdened, which means they spend more than half their income on housing.

Just two other Indiana communities come close to Bloomington when it comes to high rents. In Lafayette/West Lafayette and Terre Haute, the report said, about half of renters were classified as rent burdened — though the share of residents who are students is higher in Bloomington than either of the other two metro areas. In the Bloomington MSA, about one in four residents is a student, while in Lafayette it's one in five, and in Terre Haute it's one in 10.

Struggling to keep up

Receveur's $900 duplex rent five years ago included water and sewer, and she paid for gas and electricity. There were months when her bills exceeded the waitress earnings she was bringing home. Trying to keep up, working double shifts for extra cash and still barely making it, was exhausting.

That's when 34-year-old Receveur's five-year-long struggle to pay her rent on time and stay financially afloat began.

It's not a place the Louisville native imagined she would end up when she graduated from Indiana University with a sociology degree a decade ago. She financed her education on her own, working at a steakhouse to make ends meet.

For subscribersIU professor: 'Bloomington's falling behind' in wage growth

After living two years in the west-side duplex, Receveur was ready to move. But finding an affordable, safe and clean place was as difficult as ever. She doesn't qualify for Section 8 housing or other public assistance programs. There wasn't much available in her price range, and a 2010 eviction on record in the courts from when she was a student may have hindered her search.

Desperate, she looked on Craigslist and found a two-bedroom townhouse on Oaklawn Circle. It was in a nice neighborhood. The rent was the same as the duplex. "I was so grateful to have found this place," she said. "I was so lucky."

Receveur and her daughter, who's now 8, lived there until last month. "I knew that with rents going up like they are, they could probably get $1,200 or $1,400 for it."

She was right. When she learned in December the rent was increasing to $1,250, Receveur knew she couldn't afford it. The lease went unsigned.

According to Harvard's housing studies center, the median Bloomington renter earns an annual income of $26,700 and has median monthly housing costs of $940. According to recent data from Rent.com, only 2% of rentals in Bloomington are under $700 a month, and only 9% are under $1,000 a month.

Searching for a safe, comfortable and affordable place to live

When Receveur found herself back out searching for an affordable rental, she was quickly disillusioned. She had studied real estate and received a license to sell since her last search, but still was finding no place suitable to live with a child.

"I'd looked at a couple of places I could probably afford, but they were rundown; there was violence around, drugs, dogs running loose. The cheapest was $899 for a two-bedroom over on Miller Drive. It wasn't good. Then I started thinking about looking at big one bedrooms to save money."

Options fell away. "I was feeling like I was in a war, always trying to work more just to live and pay the bills, never to prosper or gain anything. And I got worn out, then found out we had to move again. I lost my sense of hope. I knew I had to find a place, and I couldn't find a place. I think this is the truth for so many people."

She didn't give up. A few weeks ago, she and a friend agreed to share a cabin near Brown County where they will split the $750 rent and other expenses. It's close to her new job at Hard Truth Distillery in Nashville, where she's been working double shifts.

Not to cobble together enough cash to pay the rent, but to save. Maybe for a down payment on a small house. "In a week, it's all turned around," Receveur said. "I have a chance to get ahead."

Contact reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 813-318-5967. H-T reporter Boris Ladwig contributed to this story.