Beloved SLO County caregivers moved 4 times in 5 years in struggle to find local housing
When caregivers Sandra and Chuck Gonzales moved to Cambria in 2010, they knew the rambling ranch on West Highway 46 wouldn’t be their forever home.
They didn’t know, however, that they’d fall in love with the area, decide they wanted to stay and discover that their caregiving skills might provide steady work for them.
They also didn’t expect to get caught up in the tough rental market of the North Coast and then have to move another four times in the next five years after they left the ranch.
The reasons behind those moves ranged from steeply rising rent, to having their rental home sold, to an heir who inherited the house wanting to use it as a family vacation home.
That means Gonzaleses have had to move — again and again. They can’t afford to buy a home.
They say they’re both praying that they’ll never have to move again, that they can stay for a long time in the Cambria rental house they’re occupying now.
Sandra Gonzales was sidelined in 2021 by a shoulder injury and surgery that left her unable to “lift or move my patients or tend to them how they need” to be cared for, she said.
While she’d love to return to the career she considers a calling, her physical condition may preclude that.
“My doctor said, ‘No’ — I can’t do that any more,” she said.
Nevertheless, she keeps looking and hoping to find the right patient, maybe one that needs emotional and household help more than intense and physically taxing care.
“My heart is with the people, with taking care of them,” she said. “I want to caregive, whether it’s an elderly person, a child. ...”
For now, Chuck Gonzales is working two jobs to cover their expenses, and living in Cambria on limited wages is tough.
So, the couple deeply hopes their current rental home “will be our final one,” she said. “I really hope I never have to move again. It gets harder as we get older.”
Chuck Gonzales is 61. Sandra Gonzales is 76.
Sandra Gonzales said during the duration of their nearly four decade-long relationship, “Chuck and I have moved a total of eight times in Kern County and an additional five times while in Cambria.”
Some of those decades-ago moves were tough, too, she said, and affordable housing could be hard to find.
“We even had to live in a motel for six months with a baby and a dog, 37 years ago, while we looked for a rental home we could afford,” she said. They raised five children.
The difficulty of finding affordable housing has become even more of an issue along the North Coast in recent years.
According to data from the most recent U.S. Census, Cambria’s population is dominated by homeowners, with 75% of homes occupied by an owner between 2016 and 2020.
Median gross rent over that same time period reached around $1,429, and has only climbed higher in the intervening years.
Cambria is also a low-turnover community, according to census data, with 90.3% of the population living in the same house as they did the previous year in 2020.
That means few rental properties are available in the North Coast town.
Cambria couple begins caregiving for ranching family
Lots of families move frequently — for career advancement, military deployments or family obligations. But the moves the Gonzaleses have been forced to make were caused by decisions made by their landlords.
Sandra Gonzales provided a log of their North Coast moves, along with what made them necessary.
First, she wrote that they planned to move to the Fiscalini Ranch in 2010 to take care of Chuck’s cousin, renowned rancher Louis Fiscalini, and his wife Betty.
Sadly, the man that the Gonzaleses called “Uncle Louis” died a week after they arrived.
Sandra Gonzales then provided caregiving for Betty Fiscalini until the ranch matriarch died at the end of 2013.
It was the end of an era for many in San Luis Obispo County.
Louis Fiscalini’s grandfather, Joseph, moved to the North Coast from Switzerland in 1873. His grandson, continued the family’s ranching tradition, and was named the county’s Cattleman of the Year in 1996.
Betty Fiscalini earned many honors, from being a Cuesta College Woman of Distinction in 2004 to being selected as Cambria’s Pinedorado Parade Marshal in 2006.
“I was a little scared of Betty at first,” Sandra Gonzales said. “She was such a powerful woman. But she became the mother I never had. I still miss her a lot.”
The couple did a wonderful job of caregiving in their years of helping Betty Fiscalini, according to her daughter Gloria Fiscalini.
“They took remarkable care of her, and we were very grateful,” she said. “We love them.”
Struggles to find local housing lead to moves
About six months after Betty Fiscalini’s death, the Gonzaleses moved from the ranch.
“Since leaving the Fiscalini Ranch in 2014, my husband and I have had to move four other times,” Sandra Gonzales said. “Our first home after that was on Burton Drive” in Cambria.
Two years later, they had to move after the property owner sold the house.
Their third move was to San Simeon, she said. They had to leave that house after the homeowners raised the monthly rent to $2,300 from $1,800 — an increase that the caregiving couple couldn’t afford.
Their next move was into a home on Wilton Drive in Cambria, Sandra Gonzales said, but “after roughly two years in the house, the owners decided they wanted the house empty, so they would have their own personal vacation home.”
The Gonzaleses have been in a rented three-bedroom, one-bath home on Skye Street in Cambria for about 18 months, and they’re hoping to stay there for a long time, finally breaking their move-every-two-years cycle.
Their current home is located in the Pacific Pines neighborhood of Cambria’s Lodge Hill section, an area that snuggles up to the East Ranch portion of Fiscalini Ranch Preserve.
The houses in the small development were originally built to house servicemen with the the 775th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, stationed at the now deactivated U.S. Air Force radar station about three miles southeast of Cambria and west of Harmony.
“We really hope we won’t ever have to move again,” Sandra Gonzales said. “We’re not highly educated, and rents are so high. We love it here, so we just have to trust in the Lord.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2022 at 12:59 PM.
