CINCINNATI — A couple stuck in a bitter battle for housing found a sweet ending Friday.
Barbara and Warren Walls, married 54 years, went through eviction and months of homelessness because they could not find an affordable place to rent. The two were living with relatives — separately — while looking for a place. Barbara was in her daughter's apartment in Reading while Warren lived with their grandson 26 miles away in Middletown.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to live like this forever and never see my husband again," Barbara Walls said in an interview Wednesday. "I want to have a home again. I don't want to live like this forever. I can't do it."
Finally, the phone rang on Friday.
"(My daughter Amy) said I got (the apartment)," Walls said. "I said are you sure they're not pulling our leg? You know some people do that."
A broker in Hyde Park offered the couple a unit within their budget.
"Oh God, (it's the) very best thing I've paid for," Walls said. "It's better than candy and I love candy."
The Walls wasted no time. Barbara paid her new landlord cash just hours after the offer.
"I'm going to tell (Warren) we got some place to live baby," Walls said.
With Strategies to End Homelessness finding more than 5,000 people, almost one in five over 62 years old, still couch surfing and struggling to find affordable housing, Walls wants her story to give others hope.
"I was lucky," she said. "I hope you find the luck I found — keep trying."
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