SECTION 8 VOUCHER OR ALTERNATIVE LIVING

 At the start of the pandemic, I was fortunate enough to be invited to stay at my eldest daughter's home before they shut the schools down. This made me very happy as I was stuck renting; with the help of a Home Choice Section 8 voucher,  a basement apartment that smelled of mold and mildew that permeated every soft surface. Though the windows were large, and deceivingly offered lots of light, that was blocked by the other building in the complex and the large, dying, overburdened branches of the ancient cottonwood trees, I rarely had the curtains open.
Shortly after arriving at my eldest daughter's home, my youngest daughter and her children came for a visit, a week after they closed the schools. She has two-grade school-age children she was trying to teach, running her full time cleaning business and run the house all on her own. I took it upon myself, without asking of course, and returned to Northern Montana to help her.

I had been talking about living in a van for about two years at this point, as I work a part-time, seasonal job, but had to give it up because the cost of working that job and utilizing a Home Choice Section 8 Voucher was too burdensome.  I could not meet the 20 hours a week calculation that was used to calculate my rent, so I ended up paying out money that I never earned.

It was also during that time I discovered that the Housing Authority had miscalculated the EID credit I should have received, which meant that I had paid out seven hundred fifty dollars more than I should have over the past year. Instead of returning the overage to me, they gave the money as a credit to the Landlord of my building on my account. I could have used the overage as a deposit on a different apartment but was not given that opportunity.

I had expressed great displeasure of the condition and continued issues with the apartment from the time I signed the lease during the 2018 Government shut-down. With the choice of finding a place to live or lose the voucher (the Housing Authority was not giving any extensions), the lease was signed in the middle of winter. The availability of acceptable one-bedroom apartments was realistically some time in the future.

I was already tired of the continued mistakes made by the Montana Department of Commerce Housing Division. I had advocated against them over many issues that low-income tenants endure at the HUD level, and caught many mistakes over the years. I made the decision that I would turn my voucher back in at the start of summer, and live in my tent until the first snow.

 I justified this decision as things were going to get bad and ugly with this pandemic, and I have my two girls to rely on for help. I was renting a two-bedroom apartment when there are families with small children wandering the streets at night looking for a safe place to stay.

Morally it was not right for me to hold on to that voucher when the apartment I was renting was too big for me, and I was miserable there even though I fully understood there are those who are sleeping in the park, how could I be so ungrateful?

A few days later I called the state again and asked to be removed from the SNAP program. They offered me $16 a month, and I refused this, unfortunately giving a sarcastic reply. Sorry about that. Now being shed of all Government assistance, unless you are going to count the Social Security Disability check that I paid into the program and still do when I can find work, I needed to find an alternative way to house myself.

My youngest daughter found a job in a different town and has moved there. I remain here, in Northern Montana, to finish packing her home. She will be staying with someone until she finds shelter for her and the children. This will be a task all of its own as housing is hard to come by there, and the price of rents are ridiculously high. 

My oldest daughter has a very lovely home, yet I am not certain if I should stay there. We have different lifestyles, and I am told that my expectation of others may be out-of-line with reality. I have promised, to work on that. So I am looking at living in the back of my little 1994 Toyota pickup. The sleeping arrangement is off a little, but it is quite comfortable for my back.

I also have a couple of tents, and there is a lot of dispersed camping and a few year-round campgrounds that I can stay in. My original plan was to travel around Montana for the next year, visiting all the places I had been as a kid, and other places here in Montana that I have not taken the time to visit.

Image by: David Mark from Pixabay: Lake McDonald, Montana (Got-a great fishing story from childhood here.)

I was also going to use the unrestricted time to write my "great American novel" to contribute to the literary world in a different way than I already have. Covid-19 has made me alter this plan, and the van,

well even though one was given to me, I'm not sure if I have the finances to put it back on the road. That's ok, because I discovered that I really don't like driving a flat-nosed van, I can't see if I am too close to something.

"Her Social Security benefits each month were only $499..." 

Many people across the nation are choosing to live like this as it is far too expensive to rent, or to buy a home. It also looks like the workforce is shifting to remote positions, so why should anyone be tethered to one spot when there is so much to see and do in our own back yards?

This is the time to reinvent yourself and your lives to be what you need them to be so that you can actually enjoy your life. Wouldn't you agree?  I have chosen to look at this time as a re-birthing of my life. No life can be ushered forth without some degree of pain and uncertainty. I learned that giving birth.

Are you struggling to make a change? I have been, mostly out of financial fear, too afraid to invest in myself as it might be a bad investment you might say. It was then that I realized that if I didn't give back all the help from the government, step out on my own and really live within my means things were never going to change for me.

I lived in a crummy apartment that really would be no better than living in a campground, except I would not have to share private information about myself and be forced to spend my money on something I viewed as a waste of tax-payer dollars.

Since housing codes, policies and regulations were not being enforced anywhere, why should I continue to throw my hard-earned money, and other tax-payer money at a public eyesore that is only going to grow and become more of a problem to handle in the future?

I am appalled at my participation in this housing scam. I can no longer participate in government housing as it is set up to imprison or to break the recipient into a lifestyle that no one strives for, yet succumb to as a desperate cry for help.

I would never be one of those success stories for the Department of Commerce Housing Division, only a thorn in their side. The condition of the low-income subsidized apartments in Helena, Montana are just deplorable. Every building had a flight of stairs ranging from fifteen to seven steps, and I could barely walk, yet no ground floor apartments were to be found. I hate to think if I had been in a wheelchair and these State Agency ran Apartment buildings would not be able to house me because they are not ADA accessible, this in Montana's capital city of all places!

What are the challenges you face in finding rental housing in the state of Montana?

I want to hear from you, leave a comment below. You are not the only one who has issues with Montana HUD Housing, or for that matter Montana Landlords. Now is the time to speak up, initiate the changes needed to preserve affordable housing. Now is the time to demand that the Landlords be held responsible for cleaning their heating vents, mold, asbestos, and lead paint removed. It is time that the outlets placed in these buildings in 1953, be replaced with modern outlets and wiring that is manufactured to handle the higher level of usage appliances now demand.

Wait, who am I kidding. I have been out here since I was seventeen trying to change things and yet very little has changed. I have looked for other tenants out here in Montana that want change and are willing to speak up and make the change happen, yet in all this time very few stood up, and even fewer stood past the correction of their issue.

Tomorrow your neighbor may be evicted because their unemployment has run out, or their SSI, SSDI check did not come in the mail, are you going to hang your head and watch out of the corner of your eye as they load up their belongings and head to "God knows where"?

Take action, Call Senator Daines, Senator Tester, any politician you have a relationship with and tell them Montana needs to clean up the low-income rentals, the ones that are held by corporations, individuals, and the state housing authority agencies as well.

We need code enforcement to actually enforce building codes before low-income apartment buildings, or those that have not been maintained over time start to burn down around the tenants' ears.

Well, I guess it really doesn't matter, after all, I gave up and walked away from Government Help, so why should I care? Because my tax dollars are given to slum lords under the pretense of sanitary housing at an affordable price.

YOUR VOTE COULD SAVE LOW-INCOME HOUSING

“There are only 52 affordable homes for every 100 extremely low-income renters according to an analysis by the National Low-Income HousingCoalition. Montana would need to see an additional 16,467 housing units to make up for this shortfall⁠.[6] “, Quoted from the Montana Budget website back in 2016. Have we even come close to meeting even a thousand of those units? Maybe some of the poor can bunk in the barn with the cattle after all didn't the Trump Administration want all the cattlemen to calculate the amount of poop their animals contribute to the greenhouse gas problem?

Are we going to pay the low-income Disabled and Seniors for this job, or is the roof over their heads enough to demand they should just be grateful? Where are the contractors who are willing to put the all-mighty-dollar aside and give back to the people of this state that not only put bread on his table but the table of those who work for him? Are there any good Samaritans left in this arena or have they all been blinded by the bottom line?

Does it even matter that the most a vulnerable population is still facing a housing crisis? I am not sure it really does when HUD faces an 18% reduction in the https://www.montanabudget.org/post/2020-president-trump-budget 2019/2020 Presidential budget. In this budget, the president's request would eliminate 140,000 Home Choice Voucher's nationwide. All housing programs will be effected, $3.2 billion of those housing costs will become the responsibility of Seniors, Disabled, Working poor families who can not meet the demands of keeping up with the out-of-reach necessities while being forced to maintain luxury items like the internet to be able to update their information.

With the work requirements being attached to the supplementation of government funds the poor need, we still do not have enough affordable units for these people to move into. The cost of renting has become so far out of reach many of Montana's low-income people are considering living in camp trailers, or out of their vehicles as it is the only way they can afford, medical, food, and clothing just to be able to go to any job they are able to secure for themselves.

Working for $9.50 an hour at my temporary, seasonal job for six months out of the year, I was flabbergasted to learn that I needed to make sure that I worked 20 hours every week as my rent was based on the increase in income this job would have given me plus my social security disability benefit that I worked for over twenty-seven years. Thirty percent of this gross income goes to my landlord. What is the incentive for a person like me, who has a physical disability, as well as mental, am older, have managed to secure a temporary job not qualify for any of the work incentive programs that would allow the money I make be uncountable? Just because the state or some the county agency isn't getting paid to train me, or because my employer is the State, I do not qualify for any of the work requirement job training or placement programs.

I will no longer be able to work that $9.50 an hour job this winter, as I have been limited to 12 hours a week and no more than four hours a day at a desk job. It looks like this blog and whatever else I can find that might make income for me is the only choice I have. Now how will that affect my housing you ask? Your guess is as good as mine.

If things keep going the way they are in Washington, D.C. you will probably be able to find me at a local McDonald's, as I will be living out of my vehicle, and that will be where I can utilize the internet most often.

I hope that will not be true, but as the parade of mistakes, broken promises and injustices are trotted out in public once more this coming election year, let us remember They have not finished the job they started in 2016!

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/usa-vote-election-political-voting-1327119/

Let’s vote for those who can actually put a program together and finish it so that those in the present are left hanging and those in the near future continue to face uncertainty.

We can not continue to pretend that the housing crisis has been dealt with when so many people face the possibility of losing their housing because the United States Government has better use for those appropriated funds, and besides the majority of the population believes this will root out some of those who are illegally on these programs.

Do not forget that some of us who play by the rules will be squeezed out as well, just because we either fall in the age group where we should be able to train for another job or because the amount we receive in benefits is so nominal that it shouldn’t matter anyway.

You try and live off eight hundred dollars a month, find a job that is only 12 hours a week and would pay enough to warrant going there when everyone is taking their cut off the top of your total gross income regardless of who else has their fingers in your pockets. I just wish the pickpocket was a  homeless child than the United States Government.