Erica Cuellar, her husband and her daughter moved in with her father in his home early in the pandemic, after she lost her job. She and her husband were worried they wouldn’t be able to afford the rent on their house in Houston with only one income. In July 2020, the whole family tested positive for the coronavirus.
Erica Cuellar’s dad wasn’t worried, even if she was.
It was still the early days of the coronavirus pandemic — March 2020 — and Cuellar and her husband were becoming anxious about whether they could afford the $1,200 rent for their house in Houston. She’d lost her job as a home health aide for a boy with autism, and the news made it sound like most businesses were about to shut down, which would likely mean her husband would be getting fewer hours at the pipe yard where he works — or maybe even be laid off.
“If there was going to be shutdowns, those shutdowns would be not paid,” she says. And, of course, “working with pipes is not really something you can do at home.”
Her dad, on the other hand, lives in town and owns his home. So he invited the couple and their toddler to move in with him — even though he was in his mid-60s and having a houseful of people could put him more at risk of getting Covid-19.
