Alternative Living In Montana

Finally, I have the time, electricity, and access to the internet. This picture was taken early on in my giving up my Section 8 Home Choice Voucher. The days were still hot, and nights warm, although this night the wind blew something fierce and I was afraid my tent was going to blow away. The folks camping to the right of me, came over in the morning to check on me, see if I was ok.  I thought that was really nice of them, after all, we never saw each other before.

Funny, never once in all my time using a Section 8 Voucher did any neighbor come and check on me, or the on-site manager when they knew I was ill, little alone when the wind blew all night. Heck most of them got upset if I reported repairs that needed to be made.

The above picture is what my tent looked like, unfortunately when I started to take the shade tent down, the wind caught it and smashed it into a tree. It didn't quite wrap around the tree, but it sure looked like it got ran over or something. I sure am going to miss it, as when the wind blew, and I mean blew hard (35 to 40 miles an hour or more) it kept the tent from doing the bobblehead dance. I did save the top cover, as it will go over the tent nicely, to give it some added warmth, and protection from wet weather.

I started living in my tent on August 26, 2020. I thought I would be able to find work and gradually some up the money to get into a new place without Government assistance. Well, that is not how things are working out, as it is now October 12, 2020, and I am still looking for work, and there is not a single one-bedroom or studio unit in the entire state in my budget that does not have at least 25 or more people applying for.

Most of the low-income apartments now have a three to four-year waiting "list, apartments that aren't even completely built have a waiting list a mile long. Shelters are full, and those that aren't I don't qualify for because my domestic violence threats were so long ago in the past.

Every room for rent in town (Helena) has been taken, and I am looking for work and housing in every area I think I would like to live in. The problem, well there just aren't any low-income rental units to be had, even in Northern Montana, most have been rented.

There are at least 1,357 (as reported in January 2019), people experiencing homelessness on any given day. Why that is more people than the population of some of our smaller towns in Montana. What I don't understand, is why there are so many empty office buildings that could be used to house the homeless during the pandemic or to be turned into low-income housing, yet they too sit and rot waiting for the next commercial, Real Estate Tycoon to snatch them up.

There are more Duplexes, Condos, Townhouses, and very large homes with vaulted ceilings of 15 feet of nothing but air till it hits the floor going up, and fewer and fewer average size homes that the working people can afford. Prices are so over-inflated, and you are forced to buy more acreage than you know what to do with.

The little starter home of two bedrooms, one bathroom, living room, kitchen, and maybe an office and/or full basement with the little picket fence around 1,200 square feet no longer exists. Such a shame because I can not see someone my age living in a five-bedroom monstrosity just because I could afford it, but that is what it is all about now.

Montana Department of Commerce Housing Division has failed Montana low-income tenants for over 30 years, never really paying attention to the condition of apartment buildings, or what landlords do or do not do leading us to the deplorable shortage in housing and housing that is decent, healthy, and safe.

I worry about living in my tent, or the back of my truck this winter. But apparently, you can sleep in a car until it gets 30 below zero, then it is pretty dangerous, you most likely won't make it through the night. I can tell you though living in my tent instead of Government housing, I have no bug bites, my clothes smell better, and the best part money in the bank at the end of the month.

Montana Department of Commerce Housing Divisions programs all need to be audited. If they made one error in the amount of $750, there are surely more. No one wants to listen, no one cares, well ok then it is your tax dollars that are being wasted on these buildings that catch fire in the middle of the night because of poor wiring, or someone sleeping on the sofa in the ally and drops a cigarette. But why should you care? You got money to burn, right?

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.

RENTAL HOUSING AND OTHER SCAMS DURING COVID-19

In this post, I hope to bring to light just a few of the rental scams that are taking place during the COVID virus. Low-Income, Government, Affordable, or Workforce housing (whatever name they are running it under now) is littered with scams from the private property managing companies, the landlord(s), to the government housing agencies designed to protect and help the financially challenged to obtain sanitary, up-to-code, reasonable priced shelter allowing all the conveniences of electricity, running water, heat in the winter and free of vermin, and other health risks.

They want the windows to be of a size that a full-grown adult can crawl through in case of a fire, and can be reached from the floor. There are to be doors that lock, windows that prevent the weather from coming in, adequate hot water, and heat. This is all to be provided when you rent, plus the environment is to be free of health and physical bodily risk of injury.

Many of the apartments, and houses, that I have rented on and off of the Home Choice Section 8 Voucher program have rarely met all of these simple criteria. I have rented a duplex, the entire two-story duplex for two years until I realized that the house shook every time a train came through town. The train tracks were half a mile from the house. One month after leaving the house, the current tenant told me that the upstairs toilet fell into the basement. No wonder the house shook, yet I paid rent for two years faithfully.

I rented a trailer house in Southwestern Montana, only to have the Landlord enter and exit the home as he felt, make passes at me, and try to control who my visitors were. When I reported this to the local police department, they would not do anything, housing only gave him a slap on the wrist and I got my deposit back. Overlooking the fact that I was forced to help complete repairs such as replacing the sceptic tank, snow plowing during the winter when he was not on the property, tearing up an old deck, cleaning out past tenants debris from the shed I was paying rent on. I won't mention the fact that I did not have a working bathroom or kitchen that month, and driving to a gas station two miles away to utilize the toilet was not the best option.

I have had to fight to correct a mathematical error made by the Montana Department of Commerce, Housing Division that cost me seven hundred and fifty dollars, instead of returning the money to me, they had the property management put a credit on the books for me, forcing me to remain in an apartment with broken sewer lines under the concrete floor, with a smell so putrid that it permeated my clothing and still after four months of sitting in boxes in a shed, smell of mold, mildew and something else remains, despite the year and five months of washing before being put in a box. I moved from this apartment at the beginning of the Covid-19 Montana Stay at Home Order.

I was forced into that, Montana Department of Commerce, Housing Division Inspected twice and approved apartment during the 2019 Government Shut Down in January of 2020 (one of the coldest months of winter in Montana). Many rental units are placed on Craigslist, many of the pictures you see may or may not say a picture is of a similar unit. Do not trust the pictures, your unit may not be pictured as it may not be cleaned properly, or have had repairs made that were required from the previous occupancy. 

The Housing Inspector will overlook some things as it is difficult to find a unit that meets the criteria in every way. Housing Inspectors believe they are doing the right thing so families can find homes. This is untrue as it only encourages bad landlords to allow their properties to rot down around the tenant's ears. Ask for all maintenance reports covering two years, ask for the former tenant's name so you can call and check the property manager's references as well as the owners. Run a background check on those companies and owners to find anything that they may neglect to tell you not only about their business practices, but if they are the types of individuals you want to pay your money too.

They run background checks on tenants in order to protect their investment, well you are handing over your dollars to supply the means to keep the property up so make sure your money is being used properly. Landlords blame the tenants, tenants blame the landlords and property management companies. I blame code enforcement and housing inspectors, the buck is to stop at them as they are there to make sure the unit is habitable and worth the amount of money required to rent the place. If it does not meet standards, it should be turned into code enforcement and not allowed to be rented until the landlord complies.

Code enforcement should not allow buildings with outdated electrical and plumbing continued to be rented. The landlords will never update these items, nor clean heating ducts, furnaces, air conditioners until they are forced to comply with the codes and stop splitting hairs in the courts where most tenants can not afford to bring their complaint.

New Normal Includes Homelessness

Is this the new normal for the majority of American's?

Homeless During Covid

Who is America Great For?

Working Poor

One perspective of what is becoming of America's working poor

Have You Ever Wondered What Normal Wear and Tear Means?

Normal vs. Excessive Damage
Normal Wear & Tear:
Landlord's Responsibility Excessive Tenant Damage:
Resident's Responsibility
A few small nail holes, chips, smudges, dents, scrapes, or cracks in the walls Gaping holes in walls from abuse, accidents, or neglect. Unapproved paint colors or unprofessional paint jobs. Dozens of nail holes which need patching and repainting.
Faded paint Water damage on wall from hanging plants or constant rubbing of furniture
Slightly torn or faded wallpaper Unapproved wall paper, drawings, or crayon markings on walls
Carpet faded or worn thin from walking Holes, stains, or burns in carpet. Food stains, urine stains, and leaky fish tanks are never "normal".
Dirty or faded lamp or window shades Torn, stained, or missing lamp and window shades
Scuffed varnish on wood floors from regular use Chipped or gouged wood floors, or excessive scraps from pet nails
Dark patches on hardwood floors that have lost their finish over many years Water stains on wood floors and windowsills caused by windows being left open during rainstorms
Doors sticking from humidity Doors broken, or ripped off hinges
Warped cabinet doors that won’t close Sticky cabinets and interiors
Cracked window pane from faulty foundation or building settling Broken windows from action of the tenant or guests
Shower mold due to lack of proper ventilation Shower mold due to lack of regular cleanings
Loose grouting and bathroom tiles Missing or cracked bathroom tiles
Worn or scratched enamel in old bathtubs, sinks, or toilets Chipped and broken enamel in bathtubs and sinks
Rusty shower rod or worn varnish on plumbing fixtures Missing or bent shower rod or plumbing fixtures
Partially clogged sinks or drains caused by aging pipes Clogged sinks or drains due to any stoppage (hair, diapers, food, etc.), or improper use
Moderately dirty mini-blinds or curtains Missing or broken mini-blinds or curtain
Bathroom mirror beginning to “de-silver” (black spots) Mirrors caked with lipstick and makeup
Broken clothes dryer because the thermostat has given out Dryer that won’t turn at all because it’s been overloaded, or the lint trap was never cleaned out.
Worn gaskets on refrigerator doors Broken refrigerator shelf or dented front panels
Smelly garbage disposal Damaged disposal due to metal, glass, or stones being placed inside
Replacement of fluorescent lamps - or any light bulb designed to last for years of continuous use


HUD has a list (Appendix 5D) of various items, and their life expectancy:

Item Life Expectancy
Hot Water Heaters 10 years
Plush Carpeting 5 years
Air Conditioning Units 10 years
Ranges 20 years
Refrigerators 10 years
Interior Painting - Enamel 5 years
Interior Painting – Flat 3 years
Tiles/Linoleum 5 years
Window shades, screens, blinds 3 years (https://www.landlordology.com/normal-wear-and-tear/)