I’m feeling very hopeless today. My fears about housing insecurity have become a reality.
Three months ago, my paid freelance work ended when my clients announced that they were cutting all contractors from their payrolls. I’m the sole supporter for us, so this was devastating news. When I got the news, I had only 6 months of living expenses in our savings account – it took me two years to save that much.
About 7 weeks after my freelance work ended, Irish accepted a job offer that fell through when his background check revealed an active warrant (his PO is determined to send him back to prison).
Since losing my income, my job search has produced zero interviews, and Irish can’t deal with his warrant anytime soon. He refuses to go down a road that likely means serving 6-18 months for a probation violation until I have secure employment and Barney and I have a safe place to live.
No Options = One Choice
Inquiries into rental assistance programs have been dead ends. There are stories in the local media about simultaneous surpluses and budget gaps for housing and homelessness prevention services; a homeless service provider and shelter operator under investigation for financial mismanagement; 650 shelter beds being eliminated; and the city council delaying fiscal meetings for months.
Our lease ends next month. If we renew it, our savings run out in 2-3 months, we miss rent payments, my credit takes a huge hit, and we end up with an eviction on our rental history. That means it will be significantly harder to get approved for another apartment in the future.
If we allow the lease to expire without renewing and move into our minivan, our savings will last 6-7 months while I continue to job hunt and Irish looks for gig work that pays cash.
There is only one logical choice. After just over three years of living in an apartment, we are returning to homelessness because there are no other options.
Why Bother?
What’s the point of “normal life?” There honestly doesn’t seem to be much of an incentive to do it.
When we were homeless before, there was a part of me that was reluctant to pursue the housing/work route because of the commitments and risks it entailed:
- You get housing, and now you’re locked into a legally binding lease agreement.
- If you were placed into housing by an assistant program, you have to get a job to pay for the housing before the rental assistance period runs out.
- You hope you don’t lose that job, because no job means no housing.
- You also hope your rent doesn’t rise to the point of being unaffordable on your income.
- You realize that there is no such thing as job security in this economy, and if you do get laid off, it could take 10-12 months to find a new job that pays what you need.
- Repeat this anxiety loop for x number of months each time you sign a new lease.
It’s a systemic cycle of abuse and looming threats. I was afraid of being trapped in that cycle of job loss and housing instability, which is partly why it took me so long to create a plan to get us off the street. That and the fact that it took me a long time to earn enough money to save for application fees, a security deposit, and the first month’s rent.
The discomfort of living without water, electricity, or a safe heat source, along with the criminalization of being publicly homeless in our city, is what finally motivated me to figure out how to get us into an apartment.
Now that we’re teetering on the edge of losing the housing I’ve worked incredibly hard to keep us in, I ask myself, “Was it worth it to go through all this just to lose it again? Why did I bother?”
Seriously, what was the fucking point of it all?
What Housing Made Possible for Us
I know that had we remained on the street, Irish wouldn’t have been able to go through treatment or enroll in college. Those things were only possible because we lived in an apartment and not an RV.
I was able to land better work opportunities because I had the stability of a home office, and I could dedicate more hours to working instead of navigating the challenges of homelessness.
For a while, I slept better at night because I felt safe – unlike the RV, where I never slept well.
Having a warm, dry place with utilities made a huge difference in our mental health, although I suspect Irish’s mental health has been better than mine. He hasn’t been worrying about earning enough money to cover our living expenses over the past three years.
That’s why I needed him to wake up when I told him a few weeks ago how dire our situation has become. He’s had the luxury of being insulated from it (or just choosing to be in denial). I needed him to face the truth.
A Society That Punishes Failure
I get why some people give up and opt out of a regular, traditional lifestyle. You need security to live that way, and security has been destroyed in our country over the past few years. Every safety net that was meant to help people in need has come under attack from a political party that has woven cruelty into the fabric of its platform, yet calls itself “pro-life.”
“Every life is sacred” hits differently when it comes from the people who protest so fervently outside women’s health clinics, and then feel nothing when confronted with the numbers of already-born people who are dying of starvation and exposure every day on the streets of our nation.
It seems that life stops being sacred once you start breathing on your own. Then it’s on you to fend for yourself, and don’t expect anyone to help you when life cuts you off at the knees with a layoff, a negative scan, a car accident, a loss of a loved one, or even a natural disaster (an act of who, again?).
Losing Housing, Losing Hope
Anyway … life in this country has been intentionally designed to be hard and unforgiving whenever the slightest thing goes wrong. Change won’t come in time to help those who need it, including Irish and me.
It’s been on my mind a lot to give up and run away. Or give up entirely because I’m tired of living in constant fear and stress. I just want to be done with being afraid of never escaping the cycle of homelessness.
There’s no inspiration or “next step” to this post. I don’t know what to do, and I feel completely lost.
It’s just a rant, I guess.
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