Status: Screwed, blued, and tatooed.Doing: Packing, packing, and...panicking.
Watching: The sun set.
Listening to: Nothing at the moment.
Not unless you count more Razed in Black.
Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 512.
TOPIC: CRUSHED
We could've pulled $20s out of our ass--turned back the hands of time--invented a time-machine--and do all the sorts of things we are now simply kicking ourselves in the ass for...in the here and now.
But the truth is...we can't change our destinies or our fates. We have to make what is given to us the best we can do.
And right now? Things aren't looking up for us. We are simply being railroaded and shuttered out--and it looks like this will be the end of us for the time being.
Our credit check came back denied. There was simply nothing that we could further do.
Forget doing future credit checks. We just got kicked hard in the stomach yesterday--after getting the crushing news. This means that we don't have a home outside of the one we have now.
I personally think that the foreclosure mess and the credit crunch had even the rental industry spooked badly. Because now, they are being so anal retentive over everything.
And we are still trying to figure out what the hell could've caused the denial. Our rental history is still perfect, but I'll admit, my credit history isn't great. And it isn't because of the stupid credit cards.
Never had one.
The primary thing is a student loan that I can no longer pay back. With my income low as it is and the prospects of finding a job again so remote...? There's not much we can do about that.
But this effectively shuts us out of 90% of all the current rental properties here in the Puget Sound.
Because with this denial, we already know what will happen when the others would come in as--if we made that decision to go ahead and continue next month. (Which I had planned.)
So...
I was right after all--but I wish to God I wasn't. However, this was going to happen to us sooner or later.
We are literally hitting the upper limits of flexibility and maneuvering room here--in regards to renting and staying put.
The cold reality now is that we are going to be homeless by the end of September. And it is the worst time to become homeless for this part of the state.
Our current management knows that we are on the ropes and there isn't much we can do to salvage our current situation--or save face for that matter.
We got another batch of possible bad news today. Our primary housing coordinator--who's a real bitch--decided that (after 6 years), my wife's small cash allotments from her mother every few months or so--should be treated as INCOME and be counted against me and my current amount.
I was appalled!
Truly!
How can one treat $20 or $40 every few months or so as income?
One, the money never stays. It's usually being used for things like laundry money...??? (Does that ever ring a bell with anyone here?! Seriously! I can only do so much with my limited income--and I do try to keep our piles of clothes...cleaned!!!)
So both my wife and I welcome my mother's charity now and then--to help us out. And we have never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Especially with recent events surrounding my cat, Kivata Gigante.
(Odd how housing never went after me for the amount that a collective few donated to get us through the month of April.)
But how could this be considered income??? Don't you have to have a thing called a J-O-B to have sources of stable cash flows?!
Gods!
So this whole mess--this whole affair could very well kill our housing. Bury it off the needle--because housing would demand that we pay back the amount my mother loaned us for small, inconsequential things to get us by.
Knowing my MIL, she wouldn't consent to handing over her account information willingly. And that would condemn us to being homeless for certain.
Without housing, we're fucked beyond repair. There would be little point in trying to find a place to live--because I simply don't have the money to get one.
It would take me years to get a place.
And even if we did have jobs, we still would be facing the same problems in the here and now.
Nothing would change.
People speak about the homeless problems, the need for affordable housing, and etc, etc, etc...but like one writer in the Everett Herald said today: "...there are a lot of good people trying their best to help, but they have little authority and less money. Good intentions are universally derailed by a petrified, pass-the-buck, not-my-job bureaucracy.
I can just see the poor street person, a pocket full of change from collecting cans, standing at a pay phone dialing number after number and getting the same answer -- no one is available to take your call now, but if you leave a message ... Sure."
This is generally what we would get.
But this wouldn't cure me or my wife of our impending homelessness problem.
So we have 6.5 weeks to try and change our situation for the better.
But it's a big IF.
I'm sorry if I don't sound all that optimistic. But when faced with losing the only place you've called home for 11 years now--it gets harder to look that same optimist in the eye and share in his or her bubbly enthusiasm.
My wife just wants to put her head under water and drown herself and I would rather put myself under the wheels of a bus and have the guy run me over.
That's how we felt today after getting that message from our housing coordinator--on top of everything else. We're both angry, frustrated, scared, helpless, and just plain worn out. We just don't have the faith, energy, or strength to carry on in the face of this plight.
We've done everything we can--but it's just not enough. There simply isn't anything there to catch us if we fall.
To allow us to keep going for just a little bit longer.
We are really on our own here.
I haven't felt the need to write since this problem started with our voucher being denied. I've tried...but it just doesn't seem to have that sense of urgency attached to it.
So I've stopped trying and just let things go for the time being. It hurts. The sharp pain in my soul--just overwhelming at times--but what can I do in the mean time?
Writing for me was just an escape mechanism from the world I lived in. When I was homeless in the mid-90s, it was just something for me to do. To pass the time.
But this time...it's different. I look at my writing like it's my lifeboat. My reason to escape this hell hole that poverty and abject income has sunk me under.
But I also knew that it was going to take me some time. And all I needed was just enough to get the ball rolling and something stabilized in my corner of the universe.
I got things rolling, but nowhere near enough to consider me good to go.
I just don't think I'll be able to finish what I started. Because I'm not going to be on the 'net to promote and advertise myself or The Starchild.
And that's going to be my main regret right then and there. I won't be here to share in what I've gone and created.
Because of our homeless situation.
Sky
