Homeless Los Angeles woman breaks into her old, vacant home 13 years after being kicked out - and now she's a squatter who wants to stay

A woman in Los Angeles experiencing homelessness broke into her old, vacant home of 12 years - after being kicked out.

Now, Maria Merritt's a squatter here to stay - and spoke to The LA Times Monday for an in-depth feature.

In it, the 57-year-old explained her not-so-unique situation, as more and more older Californians continue to fall into homelessness. 

A recent study released last year by UC San Francisco's Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) found 48 percent of all unhoused single adults in the state are 50 or older and 41 percent became homeless for the first time after age 50.

Merritt almost fit that criteria - shy just a few years. She was kicked out of her longtime home in 2007, right at the outset of the Great Recession. She retook the two-bedroom after falling on hard times in 2020, and has remained there since.

'The home always said, 'I'm waiting for you,' Merritt told a Times reporter from the 1072 square foot home on Poplar Boulevard, where she once resided from 1995 until 2007, with her four children.

Referencing a rampant drug habit that surfaced in the wake of her eviction, she recalled coming across the home as a homeless woman in the spring of 2020.

'The home said, 'Come back. Get well. Come back. Get well,'' she said, now clean and stable.

Supported by a walker, she now lives in the fully renovated home alone, previously with her dog.

Her four children, now grown, initially frowned at her living situation  - after she joined a group of Golden State residents who argued there shouldn't be vacant, publicly owned homes.

They emerged during the pandemic, and seized several homes as a result.

They call themselves 'Reclaimers' - arguing that their law-breaking was justified by the scandal of public property left vacant during a crisis like the pandemic.    

At the time, political leaders ordered residents to stay at home - as tens of thousands of people slept on the streets of LA.

Under pressure from activists, the state arranged for the city's Housing Authority to allow the Reclaimers to live temporarily in publicly owned homes that had been renovated, Merritt's included.

She told the Times how she  and 11 others signed rental agreements that would last for up to two years as a result, after already occupying the home illegally for several months.

There, she lived there with her family until falling on hard times after her then partner and their daughter were involved in a head-on collision, causing her to miss days at work. 

In a deep depression, she began using crystal meth - causing her her to miss rent payment.

Son, her sporadic payments of $750-a-month fully stopped, and in the spring of 2007, Caltrans - The California Transportation agency that owns the property - filed an eviction lawsuit against her. 

The Times reported that she owed nearly $37,000, after which Merritt negotiated a settlement that would allow her to stay if she repaid $15,000 over the course of several months. 

However, soon after she made that agreement, she lost her job, and within two weeks, Merritt was forced to leave her home of more than a decade - after Caltrans staffers threatened to send deputies to physically remove her.

This caused a continuing crisis - starting with 40-something taking to her city's famously seedy streets.

There, she was sexually assaulted, and forced to rummage through trash for stale food, she admitted during the onsite interview Monday.

Her daily life would go on to consist of drugs, violence, and vagrancy for more than ten years . until the pandemic and accompanying Reclaimers movement allowed her a chance to take her old life back. 

One Saturday morning that spring, Merritt upgraded from a nearby encampment to the cottage on Poplar Boulevard. 

Activists broke the windows and allowed the middle aged woman in, handing her a set of keys and new locks for the doors. 

'Thirteen years,' Merritt recalled of the reunion. 'Then en un abrir y cerrar de ojos,' she said in Spanish. 'In a quick second, I'm here.'

But things did not immediately get better for Merritt, whose children at this point were scattered elsewhere. 

Her home, despite still having some of the trinkets she left behind in her haste to leave, was plagued with graffiti, and the prevailing smell of mold and mildew, 

She was also suffering withdrawal, in the dark, cold halls of home with no electricity nor running water. 

Her non-operation toilet soon became overrun with waster, and cops constantly banged on windows threatening to arrest her - as squatters have no legal right to occupy a property without authorization from its owner in LA.

A month into her stay, Merritt invited a 58-year-old Army veteran she'd been seeing at the time after meeting on the streets, to live with her. 

Naming him as Darrel Eckhart, she told the Times how He figured out how to turn on the water and electricity, and even helped her secure furniture.

But after another three months, he was killed when a drunk driver slammed into his car parked near the encampment the pair had been previously staying. 

The loss, Merritt told the Times, was devastating, and she found herself harking back to better times in the house, playing with her youngest, Kiana.

'With my eyes open, I would strive to look for the presence of my daughter and go back to those moments,” she said. 

'And it worked. It uplifted my heart. It uplifted my soul.'

Soon, she was even able to reunite with some of her children, she recalled - revealing how they learned she was living on Poplar Boulevard again through news reports.

She described them initially being angry with her for breaking the law, and embarrassing them publicly.

'They were like, "Mom, how dare you? You always taught us you work for what you have,"' she told the Times.

'"We left the house when you knew that we weren’t able to pay rent. You left to honor yourself, your values. And you went back? Leave,"' Merritt further recalled.

Over time, though, they warmed up to the idea, she said - citing how ne of her daughters left a self-stick note on the family home's front door congratulating her for taking the step to beat homelessness. 

Then, in 2021, Caltran Under pressure from activists, arranged for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles to allow the Reclaimers to live in publicly owned homes that had been renovated.

Merritt and the 11 others signed rental agreements that would last for up to two years - which have since expired, meaning Merritt, again, is facing eviction.

Caltrans claims she and other Reclaimers - who number in the dozens - have no right to remain, referring to them In recently filed court papers as 'criminal trespassers'.

Laws, however , do not allow officers to storm in and remove them, with a court order needed to do so. These typically take time - especially with the number of squatters currently seen across California.

But Merritt insisted to the Times that her ties to the home are too great for her to leave willingly, after kicking the methamphetamine habit that alienated much of her family.

'I want to leave that house to my grandkids,' Merritt still said Monday, not giving up hope as another eviction appears all but certain. 'I want them knowing that Grandma didn’t quit on them.'

A California court will decide the rest.