TO AFRAID TO PARTICIPATE

There are a few reasons why I have not been working on this blog or participating in low-income housing activities for over a year now. Mostly because I am afraid. No seriously, I am afraid that I am going to lose my housing and without a way to make money, well you know the saying.

In the last three years, I have also been dealing with family issues that have taken a considerable amount of time and finances, which leaves me looking desperately for a job any job. Who will hire a disabled, over 50-year-old person without a college degree?

When I read all the negative things in low-income housing, I start to have panic attacks and look for used campers for sale because I am positive that is what I will end up living in. With talk of low-income rents going up maybe 50% of our incomes, I am just beside myself.

Here I play by your rules for years. Thinking that I would at least have a roof over my head and some food to put in my belly after some jerk shook me out like a rag doll and put me on the disabled roaster. How disappointing it has been. I have spent 16 years on disability doing everything that those in power, to help people like me, tell me to do only to find myself further in debt and it has been a hell of a crawl out.

If I am to pay more for my rent, 50% of my income, I have no problem with that what so ever. How are you going to convince the Landlords that this is acceptable when they want you to have three times the income of the rent of the unit? If I can pay 50% of my income for a rental unit, will it include a garden space so that I can grow some of my own food? Will it include all utilities as the electric heat here in Montana runs around $269 a month for about 400 sq feet maybe less footage but the price is high?

How am I to pay for electricity? How am I to pay for shampoo, toilet paper? Gas to get to whatever type of job I can scrounge up? By the way, for the last 16 years, I have walked up and down the highways of Montana collecting all the cans everyone is throwing out their car windows to supplement my income. I was not able to find a job that was compatible with my disability for 15 years so I had to do something to make sure I could still participate in family functions like the births of my grandchildren.

Here is another thing that keeps me up at night, if I were to buy life insurance at some point that will count as income and I will have to choose between housing or making sure my kids have the money to dispose of my body other than taking me to the mountains for the bears to have.

Society and the government would not let me live in a camper as that would be cheaper than paying rent.  I can buy a camper, self-contained for under 20 grand to live in, but that would trigger welfare checks, police visits; because it is not normal to live in a camper in the winter in Montana, stretching those resources even further than they are now. Most those folks drive over to Arizona where it warm, not below zero.

I don't understand it.  I worked hard all my life, spent my money raising two kids, paid into the social security system under the belief that everything would be ok if the sky fell. What a lie, our system is broken.

Don't get me wrong, I have empathy for those on DACA, I understand the need for helping others, but I don't understand how a person can slip through the cracks because they are $1.75 away from being considered self-sustaining even though not all factors and expenses of life are considered at today's rate, but rather two years prior.

How can you be considered self-sustaining when you can not pay the Real Market Rents of today's rental units?  When presenting the Government's Fair Market Rents, most landlords laugh and say, " Are you kidding?  I can get three times that much from someone else."

I am afraid to participate in the conversation around housing as I see that this issue is going to go nowhere. To live in these buildings under the draconian treatment from some of the property managers and the government's ignorance of what it actually takes to sustain life on the inappropriate wages, unfair return on money's paid into the system like social security; take control over what we can and can not afford to pay and what we can and can not do to help ourselves financially.

You put us here! Yes you, you business owner paying women 20 cents on the dollar! Yes you Big Brother, taking money out of our paychecks every week and telling us it will be there when we are old or disabled, but giving back exactly what you took and never paying us for the privilege of using our money to fund your drunken trips to Cavo.

Take a cut out of your pay Big Brother, one day of your pay would probably pay my rent for a couple of months I am sure.  Cut your pay Government Employes who make over $15 an hour and I bet you could find the money to save our housing, fund medical help, fund infrastructure that is beyond condemned and improve all our lives. But no Big Brother needs his mattress stuffed with brand new thousand dollar bills every two to three weeks so just keep slaving away little sister and I will let you know when you deserve to not sleep in the dumpster and fight the farel cats and dogs for the scraps.

There are more people in poverty than there are controlling this country. When will the majority be heard on this issue? Are we going to continue to allow those in control pay us far less than our sweat, sacrifices - missed first steps, family funerals, and time are worth? When will the government pay the interest that accumulated on the funds taken from our paychecks for when we grew old and disabled so we can live in today's world?

I say go ahead and bite the proverbial hand that feeds us. The hand is feeding us S***, and I for one am not going to buy it anymore. It is time, the Emperor is told he has no clothes!