Sidewalks Fill With Evicted Woman's Stuff

A woman's belongings lined four blocks of sidewalk in her Northwest neighborhood Wednesday morning after she was evicted from her home.

Eloisa Diaz said she was evicted Tuesday morning because she could no longer pay her rent. Her belongings were then removed from her home and left on the sidewalks outside in the area of 11th Street and Otis Place in the Columbia Heights area.

"They dumped my stuff and broke my stuff -- looked like trash," she said.

Diaz said she was told all of it had to be moved by 10 a.m. Wednesday or it would be hauled to the city dump in trash trucks.

In the meantime, police were called out to guard her belongings so that no one would take them. But the problem was, she had no where to go. The 50-year-old woman is originally from Venezuela but has lived in the U.S. for 22 years -- the past 15 at her northwest Washington home.

She said she has no family here to stay with. She also said that she hasn't been able to get steady work for 2.5 years.  She said she does domestic work.

"I try to get a little here and a little there, but it's not regular eight-hour work," she said.

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This past July the money dried up completely, she said, leading to the eviction.

While NBC4 was reporting on the story Wednesday morning, numerous calls were made to the newsroom with offers of help, including an offer from JK Moving and Storage in Sterling, Va. The company said it would pack up and store her belongings for a month for free, and then move them to a new home -- wherever that may be.

The calls for temporary shelter and jobs have continued to pour in for Diaz. She called the difference between the morning and the afternoon "a real blessing."

Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham said the District would also offer mental health help along with additional services.

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