Q1: Tell me a little bit more about what’s been happening?

I was four or five years old in Kindergarten when I moved into this house.

Points to a small camper trail

That’s my mobile home right there. I bought it because people were bribing me. You know, saying, “if you sell the house the lawyers will give you $20,000 and you’ll have to pay $38,000 back.” But if I move out of here where am I going to stay at? And I can only take my three dogs — Scrappy would have to go because Scrappy can't be around the other dogs. 

They bribed me. It’s terrible. It feels like the people robbed my mama and the lady who took care of my mama. We thought she was our friend and she got my mama to sign the papers [in ‘05] for the reverse mortgage [with Champion Mortgage]. That’s elderly abuse and she needs to be incarcerated. 

She talks all fast and thinks she’s smart. I knew something was fishy about her. 

From 2000 on, Margaret Jackson, the caregiver, was in Lloyd’s and his mother, Clemmie, lives

Ali is the one who saved me. It was looking downhill for me, but then she started the GoFund Me page. 

In early July, Ali Roth (Lloyd’s neighbor) started a GoFundMe post that circulated Instagram, sparking a call to action for the Bay Area community to help raise money

Q2: What’s it like living in West Oakland?

It’s boring here now. There are so many people I don’t know. It’s been so long since I’ve had neighbors that I really know. You know? A friend. All my neighbors started dying on me. Everyone living here now is new. Only been here for 1, 2, or 3 years. There’s all these new people. 

There’s all these people on the sidewalk. When I was growing up here, there weren’t any tents on the sidewalk. I wish it was more like back in the day. It was clean. The streets were clean and beautiful. It’s terrible how things are now. Shouldn’t be nobody living under the freeway. Or at the bus stop or a tent. The world is coming to an end for some people. Makes some people want to be dead. 

I took psychology at Alameda college after my dad died when I was 18.

That’s where I learned to treat everybody the same. 

People might be disabled in some ways but they’re all smart in their own different ways. My mom wore a hearing aid but she was a great cook and knew how to do a lot of other things. That’s why you have to treat everybody the same. Treat the white people the same too.

Lloyd’s mom, Clemmie, passed away in September 2019 due to cancer 

Q3: You mentioned your mom; I’m sorry to hear she passed away last year. If you don’t mind me asking, how are you coping?

It was terrible. How can you take that? It’s hard. There would be times where I would say, “ I don’t want to be here without my mama,” because it ain’t the same. My mama and I were best friends. We’d do everything together; it’d be fun and now it just ain’t the same. 

I can’t swim, so I was thinking — I’d get in the car with the dogs, leave the car windows open and just drive in the water and drown. Just drown. 

But my friends tell me, “if you do that, you not gone see ya mama…you not gone go to heaven.”

So I stay strong for my dogs. I try to stay strong. These dogs got people in them though. Sometimes when I get sad, they just look me in my eyes and come over and start licking me and jumping all over me. 

Q4: You've been in this house for over 50 years; what’s your favorite memory?

The music video with Steph Curry. 10 takes of the same song. He was right here; I was right next to him. I’ll never forget that time. 

In 2018, Lloyd appeared alongside Steph Curry in Bizzle’s music video filmed in front of Lloyd’s home.