My husband and I are gypsyTravellers (yes, ethnic nomads). In California, we are called RV dwellers. When our forced entry into Project Roomkey, we were already housed and had our own key. But it wasn’t a “legal” or good enough home to save.

What happened to us because of Project Roomkey/ Cal Expo Sacramento was based on a universal hatred of people who live on wheels. My husband died on July 7, 2020 at 3:16 a.m. in my arms. We were married 27 years.

When this started, I repeatedly told everyone he was too frail for what they (the County of Sacramento DHS) were making us do.

COVID-19 didn’t kill him, stress did. The County of Sacramento DHS will say it was his “underlying conditions” but if they had just left us be, where we were, like CDC said, then I wouldn’t be a widow. I am going to ask the DA to press charges of Elder Abuse for what they put us thru.

First, we forced out of our RV, then made to beg for motel vouchers. Made to move every 21-days from there. Then finally placed in the CalExpo FEMA death camp June 14, 2020. All this because it was against policy to help RV dwellers continue to reside in their “illegal” homes.

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing and helping us with a $600 fuel pump on said RV, or just letting us wait it all out in the Sherman Island County park, where we had already paid a week’s camp fees (as we had done almost every day since the fall of 2019 when my husband was diagnosed Sept 16, 2019 with liver cancer by the UCSF Liver Transplant unit)… … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing and actually help us get back into our home where I have a kitchen and all my husband is used to, especially his special bed, County of Sacramento DHS repeatedly refused to help us move the RV somewhere until we ourselves could repair (it’s still at the campground)… … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing, the County of Sacramento Park Rangers + DHS hustled us out of our RV home on March 19, 2020 into a motel… … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing, the County of Sacramento DHS filed an Adult Protective Services Report on ME for how I was taking care of my husband and our insufficient housing for someone over 65 … … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing, the County of Sacramento DHS proceeded over the next 90 days to pay over $8000 in motel vouchers each and every one of which I had to beg, cajole and finally go to court to get. All the while, all we want (and need) is to go back to our RV… … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing and caring about my husband’s increasing weakness and bleeding issues (I sent photos and documents!), the County of Sacramento DHS made us move out of quarantine every 21-day to a different motel so we wouldn’t get tenant rights… … …

Instead of doing the proper, moral thing and being supplied food, as the TV reports and other sources indicate, we were forces to get in our own food and medical supplies… … …

But in the end, it was the “money running out” in the motel 90-days, being made to move from the motel to the FEMA trailer – that was what began the final stress that killed him, the move to the trailer, with the nearly-three hours we had to sit in the hot sun on a sidewalk, while we waited for the for profit sub-contractor, the Navigator hired by the County DHS to be their point person (CeeCee Coleman from Sacramento Self-Help Housing agency), to show up and drive us three blocks into the FEMA campus. Talk about not doing the proper, moral thing.

I took photos of that day while we waited as I texted the Navigator over and over, but I can’t bear to post them yet. You can read the pure panic in those texts. He was vomiting as soon as we arrived at their parking lot to wait, three blocks from the trailers. Anybody could have come and taken us over. Purely indifferent to what he was going through. I fully intend to post a lot of photos (and texts) before this is over. But as I write today, it’s only been 17 days since he died.

To read more detail about the following three weeks at the FEMA camp, (including the spider bite that contributed to his increased pain and confusion the last three days), I have written a press release https://www.project-room-key-home-key-no-key.com/complaint-to-fema-about-project-roomkey/

To read the “food blog” I wrote during the weeks we stayed at the FEMA death camp go to http://www.thepandemic.home.blog

Anyone else out there with a story about how they were treated by Project Roomkey (or denied services as a homeless person in a pandemic), please go to this website https://www.project-room-key-home-key-no-key.club and write it to me and I will publish it. To add your photos, send them to me: gypsybookshop@gmail.com

Governor Newsom’s March 18, 2020 order to close all campgrounds and the County of Sacramento’s execution (no care or concern given for the thousands like us who depend on the marginal housing given by daily-pay campgrounds. The governor’s rash, uncaring decision and the county’s illogical execution (neither of which followed CDC guidelines) is directly responsible for the stress that my husband suffered March 17 – July 7, 2020, and the lack of care he received is elder abuse/ neglect. I am asking the DA and other authorities to investigate what is happening, but I am not very hopeful. After all, it’s just the homeless this is happening to.

Except we aren’t homeless. We are gypsyTravellers. Putting a nomad inside four walls and telling him it’s not “policy” to save his home since it’s an RV. Broke us both down. He died a hard death because of these people and their policies. And I intend to do something about it because #GypsyLivesMatter too.

This is my husband and best friend of 27 years, Greg Adam Mayon, mid-January 2020, two months before the fascist takeover of our life by the County of Sacramento DHS, funded by FEMA and under supervision of Governor Gavin Newsom.