Homeless people get characterized as lazy a lot. It’s a meme. Something you tend to mentally attach to ‘homeless’ without thinking about it, because it’s part of the mental package, right? No judgement, that’s society, the Just World fallacy.
If you’re not lazy, drug-addicted (in the wrong type of way), or weird-crazy, you won’t become homeless, right?
Excuse my rambling. My psych yesterday was worried because I couldn’t complete or come back to a thought. That’s when she grokked what I meant by ‘constant panic attacks’.
Anyway, a lot of being homeless is forced waiting. Waiting in line at DHHS for hours to see if you qualify for SNAP, or Medicaid, or TANF, or any other direct aid program. The waits last for hours. People lose jobs trying to get SNAP to feed their families because they don’t make enough to do it. (Yes, homeless people work.)
Most shelters are overnight-only. To get in, you start lining up early in the day (this may also get you lunch). You stand or sit and wait for a bed that night, sometimes right through the winter cold or heat with no shelter. So lazy. These are the places the police lurk, because in some cities it’s illegal to give the homeless food or water without a permit, or it must be done with ‘proper kitchen facilities’. No sandwiches. Almost everyone is looking for an apartment or a job, on their scorned cell phones.
You wait for your benefits. Last winter I didn’t get my first shipment of wood (my only heat source) until January. I didn’t get SSI after I was approved for months (but you get a back payment, so that’s okay!), after waiting a few years to get it. I still haven’t gotten my SNAP card in my new name. I remember it could take a month for TANF (although the town I was in then had on-hand supplies to make up for that).
I’m still on housing wait lists from when I was homeless at the start of the decade. And I’m still a few years down. That’s how long the homeless wait. So lazy. (Don’t forget you have to keep them updated, or you fall off! Keep track of all those lists, every county and housing agency, please do, on top of all of this. Most people don’t have a case manager, and most case managers are spread too thin and don’t give a damn-quote from my psychologist, they’re too burned out.)
Right now I’m waiting to find out if I got an apartment. I hope I have, since BRAP rules are that you must see an apartment to rent it. The realtor is very upbeat and hopeful sounding, but I have surgery next month (should be two, but I’m holding off scheduling one, the other was scheduled without my input, it’s happening), and the voucher runs out on 5 November.
If it runs out, I’m stuck in the house another winter. A house that already had broken windows when I moved in (my neighbor and I used cardboard and heat seal to ‘fix’ the worst of them), with cracks forming in more, and a warning to ‘not use the brown outlets’, because they’re the 1920s electric system (but they have to be there, because both are piggyback). That already had no insulation save the original horsehair and lathe (you can look out the outlets and see outside, I don’t have drafts, I have breezes). The stove is completely dead and was before she left, the owner bought a new one and it was never installed. Since the wall with the fridge started losing power during downpours, I don’t stock up on food anymore, either, or use the hot plate I bought (brain-damaged, not stupid). Have any of you figured out what no running water, no plumbing, buying and carrying water adds up to yet? I’m curious. Oh, and I can’t buy water anymore, so it’s back to begging and carrying it further. The wood stove doesn’t boil water even when burn indicator is buried in red. I sit 4 feet away from it and shiver.
All this has been noted by the government. I could show pictures. Hell, people here have seen it, to my eternal shame.
I’m waiting to find out if my doctors will figure out my meds. I’m having to change doctors because my old clinic wouldn’t honor a judge’s order re: my name change (still haven’t), so I can’t trust them, but since I haven’t had an initial appointment with my new doctor she can’t prescribe for me. Old clinic is refusing, too. Ah, being homeless and trans, they can do this, no matter how much my case manager says, “But they can’t! It’s not even hormones, you need this to live!” Oh, they very much can. I can’t even go there because it’s raining and no vehicle. Hopefully tomorrow.
The apartment. It’s exactly where I wanted to be. The realtor has been helpful, has already talked to BRAP, and won’t let me pay for a background check until everything else is clear, unlike every other place. My person in BRAP has preemptively renewed my application for September so there are no snags. It’s incredibly walkable to the downtown (although not a grocery). I went to grade school within walking distance! I know the area well. I’d be closer to friends. There’s storage on site, and despite it’s proximity to town? You’d never know. It’s tucked away. And everyone has been trying really, really hard to get me in the building. I’m only mentioning it now because there’s nothing else for me to do, so I can’t mess anything up, now. I just have to...wait. I did think I’d have transport to see people. I miss people almost as much as bathrooms.
I had an apartment for 3 hours, two weeks ago.
I thought it was awesome. Walkable to my case manager’s office, so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting pulled back from the bathroom again when I really needed it by a security guard, asking which one I should be in, an hour’s drive to nothing. Then needing to get the code again, because who can remember a phone number’s worth of digits (see, they hate the homeless, no use of restrooms at Maine Behavioral Health, next door to Preble St Shelter) after getting quizzed on your gender, down to ID (which says X, which didn’t help her, did it?). And they wondered why I had a panic attack, and why Sally was tense in my arms. Now it will be LogistiCare.
As I told my psych, this has been running through my head:
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
~Robert Burns
Context? He’s just run over the mouse’s den with a plow after frost, getting the field ready for winter.
Wednesday, Aug 21, 2019 · 10:56:55 PM +00:00 · LoreleiHI
I’ll be AFK for an hour or so, starting at 1845 EST. Time for my meal of the day. :) :shrugs: Being honest today. This is homelessness. It’s chilly, so I’m cooking in a toaster oven for something besides a sandwich (it’s usually still a sandwich, heh).
So friends who have seen me, yes, I’m much thinner (more than 50lbs)! My doctors are worried about it. I guess I’m glad you think I look great? I’m exhausted and have trouble staying awake, but I’m also up until 0400 and still getting up at 0700 because anxiety and spacing elimination and eating. Plus being the type of happy shiny person every professional wants to deal with. Food, I was going to get food. Not actually hungry, but I feel like I’m playing accordion with a menu with the way I keep leaning back and forth to see the screen!
Thursday, Aug 22, 2019 · 3:26:04 PM +00:00 · LoreleiHI
I want to write a quick update to this, on the stereotypes of homelessness and the advice generally given.
FFS, give people a little money. Why, you ask? Won’t they just spend it on drugs?
First: Bathrooms. There are few places that 1) have public bathrooms, and that 2) will let you use them if you aren’t a customer. For $5, you can get a drink, and hot food at a gas station, AND use the bob-loving bathroom. You all have grokked I don’t have a working bathroom, right? And I’m trans. I’m really, really sick of how much of my SNAP money has gone to bathroom needs.
Second: Alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, even heroin. Well, I use MJ for medication, and it’s damned expensive (having back spasms right now).
May I ask what you do after a long, stressful day of work? How many of you sit back at Rum & Coke Fridays here? Do you think your life is as stressful and difficult as a homeless person’s? Why so Puritanical? Why do you get to relax and not a homeless person? Why? Why do homeless people have to deal with hell with no filter? Really, I want you to ponder some thought-out answers to this classist thinking.
Third: Our lives are already so laid in with rules and regulations and where we have to be and what we have to do and how we do it… and now people are writing articles about how we can’t decide how to spend your pocket change? We’re still people, not children or animals. Do you realize how you sound?
:gently steps off soapbox and slides it under the chair:
Friday, Aug 23, 2019 · 12:57:18 PM +00:00 · LoreleiHI
It’s Friday, and although it’s morning, and maybe too early (0900), I haven’t heard anything yet. I did send a query yesterday, asking if they needed the background check (something they told me to wait on).
Another realtor did send me an email asking if I want to see an apartment next Wednesday the 28th, and I do, so if anyone local (Southern Maine) and willing to make the trip (it’s only an hour from my place, and there’s a great, inexpensive diner that’s safe for me nearby I could treat at), I’d be more than grateful. If she’s emailing me after we did the FB Live viewing...
ETA: I got a ride!
Friday, Aug 23, 2019 · 7:37:03 PM +00:00 · LoreleiHI
It’s 1530 on Friday where I am, and I still haven’t heard anything. I sent emails yesterday with a query, and just left messages, since I was assured I’d know by the end of the week.
Maybe the realtor considers Saturday the end of his week. :) I hope so. But I’m rattled.
You know that strange, disconcerting feeling when you *know* your rescue med is working, you can feel it, but you’re still having a really strong panic attack? That’s me right now.
Monday, Aug 26, 2019 · 10:31:34 PM +00:00
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LoreleiHI
As of right now, tomorrow a denial letter is being sent to me for the apartment. They need the past 3 years rental history, and of course I don’t exactly have that. I’ve tried, but I haven’t heard back from the agent (who knows how scared I am, and was on watch).
Well. Maybe the one on Wednesday will work out. But no one has pulled like this realtor. So I feel pretty hopeless.
So hopeless I contacted a relative. I explained. They said I could talk to them anytime, which is progress, but not help. :shrugs: