I saw a headline last week about a couple who was living in a storage unit in Texas. I just had a feeling it was happening in West Texas and when I clicked on the story I found that I was right. It was in my adopted hometown of Odessa --- 350 miles east of where I live today. The couple had been evicted from where they were living and had put their stuff and themselves into a 10'x20' storage unit similar to the one in the above picture. They had been living there three months. Texas summers are brutal and 100 degree days had already started by the time this story was being aired. Together the couple gets about $900 a month in social security and disability, and that would normally get you somewhere to live better than a storage unit, but times are different in Odessa these days.
The oilfield is booming.
That means that when your lease is up in what was your $500 a month efficiency apartment, you had better be ready to fork over twice that much a month, or more, in order to renew it. Otherwise there are a dozen oilfield workers ready to pay that higher price standing in line. I read these stories and remember back 30+ years ago to when my family first drove into town. I know price-gouging is a reality.
My family of 6 (at 16 I was the oldest of 4 kids) rolled into Odessa in May of 1980 after my step-dad heard about the unlimited work for welders. He had his own rig and soon learned he could write his own ticket. Within a day of arriving, he signed on at OIME, a local business out on the highway between Midland and Odessa---a 20 mile stretch of oilfield-related businesses, pumpjacks and the people who worked them. He found the job before we found a place to live and the housing search proved to be a lot more difficult. We finally settled at the KOA about 5 miles from his job. We were going to camp out -- in a tent. Yay. Stay tuned -------
Hot for a tent too!
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