Advice for the New Poor Part V-1

[DuctapeFatwa]

When you first became homeless, you refused to see it as anything but a temporary, make that a VERY temporary setback.

Rent and electric were your biggest expenses. If the two you can both hang on to all 6 jobs, it shouldn't be too hard to save up enough to get another apartment, maybe even one with lower rent than you had before.

That's what you said to yourself as you closed your bank account, all $31.46 of it, most of which went almost immediately to buy food and water. Bottled water used to be a staple, before. Then it became a luxury, but now that you don't have running water, it's become a necessity.

You weren't sure how you'd handle your paychecks, but Eusebio explained to you about check cashers, and that you'd have to pay a little less than he did, since you have a driver's license. A driver's license is ID, and there is an extra $25 fee to cash a check for someone without ID. At least it's good for something, you thought, as you rummaged around for it in one of the plastic garbage bags that house your newly scaled-down-for-extra-mobility personal effects.

Without a car for so long all this time, you haven't really needed it, and with all that's been going on, and the difficulty of going anywhere or doing anything, you should not really have been so surprised to find that it has expired, and so has Sarah's. Renewing is not an option - where would they send the new licenses?

The unexpected pay cut throws a wrinkle into your plan to save up for an apartment. Homelessness has expenses you had not thought about - like paying people not to take your stuff while you're at work. For politeness' sake, you both refer to it as giving them a little something for "watching it for you."

You give gas station hygiene the good old college try, but you soon find that none of the 3 of you can stand to go very many days without an actual shower, and that means the bus station, and $5 a person for 15 minutes in a rented shower-locker.

Sarah had gotten pretty good at washing clothes by hand to save a few dollars, but without a sink, it's back to the laundromat, which you discover has raised its prices. At least the 24 hour one has, and that's the only one you can use, with your schedule, and only then if you skip what you have come to think of as your nightly nap, as opposed to sleep.

Bus fare has gone up again, and you don't know if you have a secret enemy, or just bad luck, but your W-2 job started a new program of periodic employee record updates, which include both an ID and an address check, so the job you had that paid the most over minimum is gone, and you no longer have the necessary credentials to find a replacement. You use your new free shift to wait for day labor opportunities outside the convenience store, but soon discover that you are out of your league, standing among men and boys who have been doing manual labor since they could walk, and all you get are a few half-days of cleanup work, and even that, you realize, is because the other guys feel sorry for you, and put in a word. It only pays $12 for a whole day, this is off the books, the informal economy, workers who risked their lives to get the $12 a day, because their families were going to lose their lives if they stayed where they were and tried to make it on $12 a month.
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Still, that doesn't stop you, and you still keep an eye out for housing possibilities, even though you have learned that in order to get an apartment you will need not only ID, but a credit check, documented proof of income equal to or greater than 4 times the rent, and two months rent plus a security deposit of $300 to $500 in advance. Because these are low income apartments, the application fees are usually only 40 or 50 dollars.

What does surprise you is how much rents have gone up. Less than 3 years ago, your (what you now know was) spacious luxury apartment in the gated complex with the pool and tennis courts was $1200 a month. Now you are seeing studio and one bedrooms in slum neigborhoods going for over $800. The cheapest you can find is $725, a room barely large enough for the 3 of you to fit in it, a tiny cubicle bathroom, and a hot plate and minifridge in one corner. To move in, even if you had ID and all the rest, you would still need almost $2000 cash.

That's how it is, says Angela, and your neighbors agree. Once you are out, you aren't likely to get back in.

You have never been a big fan of government handouts, any kind of handouts. It's not helping people, you used to say, to just give them everything on a silver platter. Work for what you want. That's how you were raised. Taking care of your family is YOUR responsibility.

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Recently, however, you have had to face the fact that taking care of your family means checking out what public benefits may be available. The little money you had saved up didn't last long when the three of you got strep throat. The indigent clinic just wasn't feasible. You couldn't miss that much work. And you and Sarah had both gotten too sick to even be much use at work, although you went every day anyway. You had to take a sick apiece and go to the pay clinic. Twice. And the new antibiotics are fast acting and effective, but they cost an arm and a leg. So it's time to start the Saving for an Apartment Fund over. You and Sarah each keep half of the Fund taped underneath your clothing at all times.

Your research into public benefits is a real eye-opener. You soon learn that the only "handout" available would be for Sarah and Cat, and then only if you are 'not in the home."
Even if there isn't a home. If you leave Sarah, she will be eligible for a monthly benefit of $327, plus food stamps, after her income is subtracted, of course. Plus, she can get on the waiting list for an apartment in a government housing project. In your city, the list is about 6 years, with priority given to families (as long as the family does not include a father) with children under 6. In 6 years, Cat will be 19, and Sarah and Cat will be removed from the list, since public housing is only available for families with children under 18.

Since Sarah is employed, the Human Services Department will require proof of income. You are unable to find anyone who is aware of a case where someone kept a job after getting a call from the welfare office to confirm income. Without exception, employees whose bosses receive such calls are let go for unrelated reasons.

Trying to take stock, plan for goals, find a way out has become a sick Kafka nightmare.

When Sarah trips on the ice, you know she has twisted her ankle badly. It starts to swell almost immediately, but when she admits that her toes are numb, you know it's not just a sprain.
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By the time you get her to the bus stop, you are both crying. After turning most of the Fund over to the pay clinic in advance (since it's not a compound fracture or bleeding uncontrollably, it's still a pink ticket at Indigent Care) the doctor gives her strict instructions to keep her weight off it, a prescription for pain medication you can't afford to pay for, and an order for crutches you can't afford to fill.

She can't walk. All your good manners, all your pride goes out the window, and your voice breaking, you ask the clerk at the desk if you can please keep enough of what's left of the Fund to get a taxi. She explains that the full amount must be paid. You turn around, and half carry Sarah to the street. The taxi driver doesn't understand at first when you ask him to take you to the underpass, but he does, and as you pay him, and drag Sarah out, he counts the money and rolls his eyes at you, shaking his head, something about how you folks beat all and drives away to tell his next fare that the fact is, most of these homeless folks have plenty of money, they are just crazy people, who ought to be locked up.

You soon learn that the taxi driver speaks for the city government, at least as regards locking up as a solution. A neurosurgeon's convention is coming to town, and the police will be "cleaning up" the area under the expressway. You and everyone else will have to "move" or risk going to jail. Your neighbors help you lift Sarah and put her on top of all the bags and cardboard in the cart.

Your new home, a wooded area behind the convenience store, will be very temporary. The police regularly visit and round up anyone found here, but for the next few days they will be concentrating on the part of town where the big hotels and their service alleys are.
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You get Sarah "settled," and use the rest of your "day labor" shift to get the bus to the strip mall, where you use the rest of the Fund to buy the pain pills, and steal some Aleve and Motrin to supplement them.

Things will be rough now. Sarah won't be able to put weight on her foot for several weeks. She will lose all three jobs. Now the family's only income will come from your shift at the chicken plant, and your weekend job at the warehouse.

On the plus side, Sarah will be able to "watch your stuff," although how effective a security force a non-ambulatory woman with a cast on her foot will be is debatable.

The neighbors are impressed with Sarah's cast. Some nod to each other, they knew you were different from them, had some money. A woman tells Sarah she is lucky, having a doctor set the foot will probably keep it from healing crooked, like her own, which she shows the group. Everyone agrees that it is the truth. Bones will heal crooked almost every time, unless you can get a doctor to fix it. You don't like the way some of them look at Sarah when they talk about people who have money for doctors. You tell Caitlin you want her to stay with her mom tomorrow. You will write her a note for school. Someone chuckles and gestures at the cart, he's got pens in there, the man says, a notebook full of paper. Everyone thinks that is amusing, in a quaint sort of way. What's he going to do with pens and paper?

Eusebio at the chicken plant is sympathetic. He nods approvingly when you tell him about walking out and getting a taxi. You're a good man, he says, a good man takes care of his family. Family comes first. His cousin almost cut his finger off the other day, but same as you, no time for indigent care and a pink ticket, he had to get back to work and finish the job before the end of the day so he went to the pay clinic. He wondered how come they had started requiring people to show proof of address for treatment there. Luckily his cousin had a light bill in the truck. If he hadn't, Eusebio would not be chuckling at you, he would be angry. Family comes first.

Even the cousin gets a kick out of the story, when he comes to pick Eusebio up. Get in, he tells you, I'll give you a ride. Then get your stuff together and I'll show you a better place.

Besides you and Sarah and Cat, the only other people in the wooded area behind the Red Lobster dumpster are an extended family from Guatemala. They are not urban sophisticates like him and his family, Eusebio tells you, but they are good people. Through gestures and Eusebio's translation, you learn that this family really is homeless by choice. They don't think of it as homeless, though, and they show you the hut they have built from branches and scraps of metal and plastic. Inside it is carpeted. Remnants, one of the men tells you. He and his brother are carpet installers. Free-lance. They didn't have electricity in Guatemala, or a plastic roof. They have not had any trouble with this roof since they put it up. His brother makes you an offer. If they help you build a hut, will you teach one of the family to read? He thinks it will be good for business, maybe not so much now, but in the future. Cat volunteers. She has learned enough Spanish in school to do it.

As Sarah's foot slowly heals, helped along (you hope) by some foul-smelling boiled plant mess that her self-appointed clinician Concepcion insists on pouring down into the cast, you discover that carpet installation is a better way to spend your free shift than trying to get day labor. You suck less at it, and the pay is better. Although you can't say that you like the hut, you are grateful for it, and are amazed to discover that your daughter has become a young woman, and a bilingual one at that, and sadder than you have words for that for the last three years, you have hardly seen her.

When she brings you the note from school, you feel guilty. You've never been to her school, never met her teachers. Neither has Sarah. You tell Lalo that you won't be able to roll carpet tomorrow. Cat insists she isn't in any trouble, she hasn't done anything, she's made good grades. More guilt. You have always been too tired to even look at her grades, just signed them...


Coming soon - Part 6: It is an unfortunate situation, in cases like this it's tragic.