Couple forced to leave Sunny Acres, now living in car

Posted: Aug 31, 2011 10:21 PM by Danielle Lerner
Updated: Sep 1, 2011 8:06 AM

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Brex Owen and Velma Hunt say they need help now more than ever. Last week Sunny Acres Owner Dan Devaul told more than a dozen people to leave the sober-living facility by Monday morning. This, after a judge threatened to take over control of the 70-acre ranch if people continued living in unsafe structures. Many residents told KSBY news they have nowhere else to go.

Owen and Hunt were only living at Sunny Acres four days before they were told to leave. He is an out of work painter and she only gets $800 a month in disability payments. KSBY News was there when Devaul broke the news that they would have to leave, and now they are living in their car, parked at times behind a gas station in Morro Bay.

"Where do we go? There's no place for us to go," said Hunt.

However things were not always this way, up until a year ago Owen and Hunt were living in an apartment in Los Osos.

"We had a decent life, a real decent life, we were real people," said Hunt. "The transmission went out on our car, my husband lost his job and after that happened we lost our place."

They have spent the last year in and out of their car and area shelters. Hunt says she suffers from Fibromyalgia and Alzheimer's, Owen says he is not eligible for government assistance because he spent time in prison on drug charges 16 years ago. Still, the couple insists he is a changed man.

"We're decent people, we've always been that way," said Hunt.

A hard worker holding out hope for a second chance.

"Never, never in a million years did I ever think in the United States of America that this would happen to us," said Hunt.

The couple says they would be in a much better place if Owen could just get some painting work. Their contact information is in the Links section of ksby.com.