why are my sims suddenly homeless?

@teamallman I can see in the households that you must have cc? It is possible that the cc is causing you issues. Please try the following and see if it fixes the issue. Please let us know how it goes: 

• Exit your game then exit Origin. Copy the Mods folder from your 'The Sims 4' folder to your desktop (for future reference) then delete the mods folder and the localthumbnailcache.package file in your 'The Sims 4' folder and restart the game and so that the game will re-create the folder.
• Then run a game repair [ Open Origin, click 'Game Library' then right-click Sims 4 > Repair Game ]. After that, please see if the issue has stopped. 
  (If It fixes the situation you can re-add your mods/cc one at a time to see if one was conflicting with the function/causing the glitch - but do not re-add the old config file from the old mods folder, as it is possible for it to have become corrupted also.)

Removed the mods, repaired, and deleted the cache file. Rebooted and again only the last three or four sims I touched are available to play again without starting them all over. Problem still exists.

@teamallman By any chance are the sims that are left the ones you made without the cc? Is there anything that you can think of that the remaining sims/households have in common? I am consulting with other helpers for suggestions currently, also.

Unfortunately no. Those involve cc as well. The reason they show up is because those are the ones I had played most recently. The other ones I played prior to the big origin update are now in my library only and I can't access them except as a fresh play family.

@teamallman Can you please try, in the repaired game with no cc in it, to create a new family that has no cc used in it and experiment with seeing if this family will have the issue. Can you also confirm for me that when you look at the households in your library that you are not seeing that blue wrench in the upper left corner of their thumbnails? Thank you!

It is entirely possible that the households that you made with the cc in the game have become too glitchy to play correctly and that you will need to play with fresh/new households. Just to clarify, you did not re-add any mods or cc after the repair and the removal of the cache file and the mods folder, correct?

The only way I would be able to do that is to wait a whole week to see if I could still access that household so that's not an experiment I can do at this time. I am seeing the blue wrench and I have to click include custom content for my households to show up. 

That household had been playing seamlessly with no added/removed cc at that point. I have not added/deleted/changed any cc or mods or cache.

@teamallman Unfortunately, if you are seeing the blue wrench that means that there is still cc in that household. Please try re-doing the steps I mentioned in my first reply being very careful to do each exactly as mentioned. and without re-adding anything from the old mods folder. Also, please make sure you wait for the repair to run on all expansions and packs, not just on the basegame. It will repair the basegame first, then will move on to repair the expansions and packs, one at a time. Please let me know the result. Thanks!

I was saying I am unable to do the first thing you recommended because it is not a problem that you can see the results of immediately. These games looked like they timed out and were cleared out so I can't get you the results of your test that you're looking for.

@teamallman I understand about the part of the issue where it would take a couple of weeks to test is not immediately test-able, but that is a non-issue since the cc is apparently still in the game, so testing a new household once the cc has been removed (one that was created without the cc in the game) is not possible yet anyway.

If you are seeing the blue wrench that means that there is still cc in that household. Please try re-doing the steps I mentioned in my first reply being very careful to do each exactly as mentioned. and without re-adding anything from the old mods folder. Also, please make sure you wait for the repair to run on all expansions and packs, not just on the basegame. It will repair the basegame first, then will move on to repair the expansions and packs, one at a time. Please let me know the result. Thanks!