‘Is it going to happen?': Seattle chef struggles to get unemployment, faces homelessness

Last week, Gary Barbo realized he had only two dollars and sixty-two cents left in his bank account.

“It actually ended up getting to be pretty dark for me,” he said. “It was very overwhelming.”

Barbo had just been promoted from sous chef to head chef at Seattle’s Ravishing Radish Catering when, in early March, people started cancelling events — from small weddings to big fundraisers. The owner was forced to lay off the entire staff.

“I’ve never been laid off before,” Barbo said. “I mean, I’ve quit plenty of jobs. Work isn’t something I’ve ever had to worry about finding.”

Barbo was in between apartments when he lost his job, so, now, he’s living in his van with his pet corn snake.

Barbo said he’s always lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and he got his last paycheck March 13. Now, that money’s gone.

He never saw his $1,200 stimulus check, because it was garnished for past-due child support for his 14-year-old son.

He applied for unemployment, but “I admit that I’m not so good at doing stuff like that,” he said. “And I really have no one to help me with it or guide me. I can’t get ahold of anybody.”

Long wait times and busy signals have inconvenienced many people attempting to get the unemployment office on the phone.

“I got all the letters that I was approved,” Barbo said. “But then for some reason, there’s been, I guess, issues.”

The unemployment office notified Barbo that they weren’t sure if he’s eligible to work in the U.S., even though he says he was born in Texas.

Barbo was out of cash and couldn’t pay his phone bill, so his phone got turned off. He was worried the unemployment office wouldn’t be able to reach him to sort things out. That’s when he decided to borrow just enough money from a friend to pay his phone bill.

“The first thing I did when my phone got turned back on was call my son,” Barbo said.

Barbo’s car insurance came up for renewal on April 30; his boss lent him the money to keep his van insured.

On top of all that, his van got broken into. The intruder "ended up not even taking anything, because I caught him in the act, but everything was torn apart," Barbo said. "It was flipped upside down in there. I felt a little violated.”

Barbo called the police, and the officer who came to the scene “let me talk to him and let me cry — just let me stand six feet away and just bawl and get emotions out,” Barbo said.

Now, Barbo added, he’s “kind of getting to the point where I see all the stuff that’s happened in a comical way.” He said he’s “just been putting my mindset towards, ‘Can you believe that?’”

Barbo is still working on getting unemployment checks; once he’s approved, he should get about $970 per week.

“I know, to a lot of people, that seems like a very small sum of money, but, to me, at this point in my life, that would be life-changing,” Barbo said. “I don’t seem excited about it because it hasn’t happened, so my reality is, ‘Is it going to happen?’”

More than unemployment checks, Barbo said he really just wants to get back to work.

“I really enjoy my alone time,” he said. “But I think, through this, I’m starting to realize I’m way more social than I really think, because just the outlet of going to work and enjoying the people that I work with … I kind of had taken it for granted before.”