By Patricia Escarcega, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2020
Tony Ruiz doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep tonight.
Two months ago, the 31-year-old had a steady job as a line cook at the San Francisco Saloon, the long-standing bar and grill on Pico Boulevard, and was renting a room in a home near the West L.A. neighborhood where he grew up. When he wasn’t working, he dreamed of someday opening his own restaurant.
Now, with his job lost to the coronavirus outbreak and his savings eroded, Ruiz is in crisis mode.
He got evicted from the home he was living in last week over a dispute involving missed rent (Ruiz moved out but says he’s looking for legal aid to fight the eviction). Most of his personal belongings were recently locked up in storage. He’s spent the past several nights drifting between friends’ houses, sleeping on couches, scanning Craigslist job boards daily for work and trying not to fall into despair.
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