Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath"
This is the story of two star-crossed lovers torn apart by … wait a minute.
Henry and Kristy are somewhat star-crossed, yes. But they're being crucified mostly by several cruelties at the heart of America's political-economic dysfunction:
- Kristy's chronic illness, compounded by injury;
- the refusal of Georgia, like other red states, to expand Medicaid to cover the working poor;
- poverty wages;
- the criminalization of poverty;
- the addiction crisis, making Kristy and Henry collateral damage of someone addicted.
This is a plea for your financial help, to get them reunited, indoors.
Henry is employed but homeless, and in danger of losing the car he sleeps in, in the suburbs of Atlanta. Henry's fiancée, Kristy—my friend—is employed but homeless on the other side of North America, in a small town a couple of hours from Seattle.
Kristy sleeps in a tent in the woods, behind the factory where she works. Henry sleeps in his car. Any night now, the car could be impounded by the cops. He can't pay impound and storage fees, so the car would be lost. And of course, he would have nowhere to sleep, and no way to get to his job.
If Henry and Kristy could live in the same place—why Washington? that's part of the story—they could pool their meager incomes and live indoors. Doesn't seem like too much to ask for Americans working full-time.
This is a plea for the money Henry needs to get indoors now, with a legit place to park, and get his driver's license back. That's going to take at least around $900. If Henry can get those nailed down, then with his next paycheck he can leave Georgia and get as far as Abilene, Texas. If Henry can get to Abilene, a friend there has promised him work for a few weeks and enough money to get the rest of the way to Washington.
Chapter 1—Lovers in Paradise
Kristy and Henry met and fell in love in the Atlanta suburbs. Kristy was working three jobs—but the most lucrative paid only $12 an hour, and none had any paid sick time. Kristy was driving for Lyft; she was doing tech support from home over the internet (which turns out to be a rotten deal—don't do it); and she was driving a van for a transportation company. The van-driving job even offered health insurance, and Kristy was paying the premium out of each van-company paycheck.
Henry was working too, but also at poverty wages. And far enough away from Kristy's van-driving job that it wasn't practical for them to live together.
Chapter 2—Kristy's illness; financial disaster
Kristy came down with a chronic kidney infection in October 2017. In the 15 months since then, Kristy has been hospitalized 14 times, has lost one kidney, and has come damn close to losing the other one—it has shut down more than once, but the doctors were able to get it restarted. A couple of those hospitalizations were for random injuries—Kristy fell in a parking lot, fracturing her wrist badly enough to require surgery to insert metal pins. Kristy missed a ton of work, of course, and as none of her jobs had any paid sick time, often her medical insurance premium alone was more than her entire income. Other times her medical copays alone were more than her income. Often nothing was left for rent, utilities, food.
Kristy is estranged from her abusive family, so they've been no help. In fact, worse than none—she gave a second chance to one close family member, and was rewarded by being ripped off. For more than a year I helped as much as I could. But I can't anymore. And most of Kristy's other friends don’t make any better wages than Kristy—barely keeping their own lights on—so the amount they could help was minimal.
Chapter 3—Medicaid not expanded here
Because Georgia has not expanded Medicaid, people like Kristy—not elderly, not custodial parents of minor children, not found disabled by Social Security—don't get Medicaid. (I represent Social Security disability applicants for a living. To qualify, you have to have a disorder expected to keep you out of work for 12 continuous months. Kristy doesn't. She can work several weeks at a time, then her illness randomly flares.) And—I am not making this up—to get subsidized coverage through the Affordable Care Act, you have to earn at least 100% of the federal poverty level, and your employer can't offer insurance. Kristy's employer in Georgia offered insurance, so she couldn't qualify for an ACA subsidy. And when she wasn't working due to illness, of course her earnings were below 100% of the federal poverty level—meaning that under the ACA, she was too poor to get a subsidy.
That's America.
So in metro Atlanta Kristy was chronically on the edge of homelessness, kept indoors and medically treated only because her friends—including me—were shelling out money at an unsustainable pace. Something had to give.
Chapter 4—Journey to a place that's better, but only relatively
Kristy had a friend-of-a-friend in metro Seattle, driving with his wife to the Atlanta area to visit family last summer. Kristy asked if she could ride with them back across the country to Washington—which has expanded Medicaid. They agreed.
Great!, I thought. When Kristy gets to Washington, she can get Medicaid, and can sleep on her friend's couch till she gets medically and financially stable. She's going to be okay.
Wrong. Turns out the friend's wife had an addiction problem, and they were on the verge of eviction. And Kristy is a recovering substance abuser who wants to maintain her own sobriety. For both those reasons, Kristy had to get out.
Chapter 5—How to work full-time and live in a tent
Still sick, with only enough savings to rent a room for a week, Kristy got a job in a factory in a small town outside the Seattle metro area. She started there as a complete stranger—no family, no friends. Her modest wages are enough to rent the room—if nothing goes wrong.
But with Kristy's chronic illness, something always goes wrong. First there was a bureaucratic glitch with Medicaid—it stopped paying for Kristy's medications. The social worker promised Medicaid would reimburse Kristy for what she had to pay out-of-pocket, but that would take weeks. In the meantime, Kristy could not pay for both medications and rent. And her doctors had stressed she should not miss any medication doses. So Kristy got behind on rent.
The social worker got Medicaid restarted, but before Kristy was reimbursed for the money she'd spent on medications, she had to be hospitalized for the 14th time in as many months. She asked one of her co-workers to turn in her time sheet before payday. The co-worker forgot. So at the next payday after Kristy got out of the hospital, Kristy had no paycheck. The payroll department said it would take another week to pay her.
Kristy had never been well enough for long enough to save up money for deposits for rent and utilities. So instead of a real apartment, she was renting a room. Which means the landlord doesn't have to file any kind of legal eviction process—they can just lock you out. No notice—you just get home and your key no longer works.
So since a couple of weeks before Christmas, Kristy has been sleeping in a tent in the woods behind the factory where she works. When she was locked out, she lost most of her clothing, toiletries, etc. Before she got the tent, Kristy slept outdoors for several nights, under only her coat.
One of those nights, somebody came along while Kristy was sleeping and stole her coat.
It was snowing.
I want to think badly of the person who stole Kristy's coat that snowy night. But as soon as I start to, I think that person was also outdoors in the snow, also with no home to go to, also with no coat.
Happy new year, America.
Chapter 6—Back to Henry in metro Atlanta
Henry desperately wants to get out to Washington, so he and Kristy can pool their meager earnings and live indoors. And Henry has a full-time job … when it's not raining. He works outdoors. His job had already planned to shut down a week for Christmas and New Year's, and on top of that they lost a lot of work time before and after the holidays due to rain. (It's been an exceptionally rainy year, and month, here in Georgia.) It's sunny today; if the weather holds, Henry will be working on Monday for the first time since before Christmas.
Henry barely makes enough to keep himself indoors, when he gets a full paycheck. Given the lack of work for most of the last several weeks, he's now sleeping in his car. Since Henry has no place he's authorized to park it, he's been parking the car overnight at public parks. So far he's gotten away with it. But he can't get away with it forever. One night, a cop is going to come along and tell him to move the car, and ask to see Henry's ID.
And then the cop will discover Henry doesn't have a driver's license. Which means Henry can't legally drive the car anywhere. Which means the cop will have the car impounded, and Henry will have both no transportation to work, and no place to sleep.
Why doesn't Henry have a driver's license? Because he owes $380 on an old traffic ticket.
If the car is impounded, it's gone forever—the impound fees will add up faster than Henry can earn money to pay them. With no way to get to his current job, it could be a long time till Henry sees another paycheck.
Chapter 7—The plan
The first priority is to get Henry a legal place to sleep, which would also mean a legal place to park the car, to reduce greatly the danger of the car being seized. In Cobb County, Georgia, where Henry works, the absolute cheapest room to rent in the slummiest place around is $190 a week. Two weeks = $380.
The next priority is to get Henry a driver's license, so he can drive to work legally, without fear the car will be impounded if he gets pulled over for any minor traffic infraction or accident. In addition to the car being impounded, he'd presumably get another ticket—and perhaps be locked up—for driving without a license. Paying the old ticket is another $380.
$380 + $380 = $760. Add in a little for food and gas till the next paycheck comes, and call it $900.
Henry's relatives are all in Florida, and are barely keeping roofs over their own heads. They can't help, or Henry would be indoors already.
On the bright side, the car is in good shape, has a current tag, and is insured.
If Henry can quickly lock down a place to park the car and himself, and get a driver's license, then with his next paycheck he'll be able to leave for Abilene, Texas. He has a friend in Abilene who has promised him a few weeks of work, and enough money to make it the rest of the way to Washington, and Kristy.
Chapter 8—The GoFundMe
Henry has a GoFundMe.
If you can help these folks build a decent life out of their medical and economic shambles, I'd appreciate it.
