Woman in her eighties facing eviction begins search for a permanent San Juan home
A woman in her eighties facing an eviction order from the two-bedroom house she has rented for 27 years in Urbanización Roosevelt, Hato Rey, San Juan, has completed the paperwork to begin the search for a permanent home and has shown interest in a unit at one of the housing projects presented to her, elvocero.com reported on Thursday, October 15, 2026. The Puerto Rico Department of Housing will coordinate a visit by her lawyer to the available unit in the complex she chose, a department spokesperson told the outlet.
What the agencies offered
The department presented options in public housing and in égidas, the island's housing for older adults, after its staff visited her on Tuesday, October 13, to begin identifying a permanent home, elnuevodia.com reported on October 13. Her lawyer told that outlet she had shown interest but had not accepted any offer, and that the alternatives had to fit her age, her income, her pets and the neighbourhood where she has made her life. El Nuevo Día's news programme Lo de Hoy reported the department's offers again on October 14.
The Municipality of San Juan said she had accepted a permanent residence offered through the state and that the move would happen on or before Thursday, October 15, elvocero.com reported on October 14. Her lawyer had not confirmed that acceptance and said no date had been set to carry out the eviction order. The San Juan mayor told El Vocero the next day that the home, as he understood it, was provided by the Public Housing Administration.
The municipality is supplying new appliances and furniture, because most of what she had was unusable, and certificates to buy food, the mayor told the outlet. Its Department of Community Social Development gave her a $500 voucher for personal items and $500 toward an electricity debt. She would move with her three dogs, and the agencies have begun the steps to certify one of them as an emotional support animal.
How the case got here
A San Juan court ruled for the landlord in April 2026 and ordered the eviction and the payment of $3,130 in rent owed up to then, elnuevodia.com reported. The eviction set for Thursday, October 8, was suspended when two agencies did not appear, and the landlord has asked the court to sanction them. Two housing officials helped her fill in social-housing forms that same day.
What a home costs in Urbanización Roosevelt
She has paid $475 a month for the house. In the Eleanor Roosevelt sector of Hato Rey, eight houses are listed for rent today at asks from $700 to $2,100 a month, a median of $1,550; the two two-bedroom houses among them ask $700 and $1,495. 24 apartments for rent in the same sector ask a median of $2,600.
Across San Juan's occupied rental housing, the median contract rent was $488 in the 2020-2024 American Community Survey. That figure covers the whole occupied stock, including subsidized and long-standing leases, and leaves out utilities. Landlords across the city posted a median asking rent of $2,244 in October 2026.
Three houses are for sale in the sector, at a median ask of $410,000, and 19 apartments at a median of $725,000.