Opinion: My family won’t have a place to live much longer without cheaper housing.

Margo Velez is a policy coordinating committee member for the San Diego Housing Federation’s Homeless Experienced Advocacy and Leadership Network and a member of Residents United Network San Diego. She currently lives in a hotel in Mission Valley.

My experience being unsheltered began about 10 years ago. As a store associate working for the 32nd Street Naval Station commissary, I made around $16 an hour. I was supporting two teen daughters, one of whom had a serious congenital heart defect, so there was barely enough to live on.

The company that managed the complex we lived in was planning to remodel all the building’s units and evicted us. As a result, we ended up in a homeless shelter, I did not want my daughters exposed to the drugs and health hazards — such as food poisoning, head lice and bed bugs — which impacted us daily there.