Three years ago, I went on a subsidized housing list. It has fallen through.
As folks know here, we have been facing economic troubles for some time. Yesterday I had to eat ground turkey for dinner, from a food bank, I made left overs and gave us smaller portions to have dinner tonight. Hopefully these will ease up when my husband will be going on Social Security [for old age]. I still need so many things. It is sad how many things I miss out on simply for having no money. I even wish I had some art supplies for one project. I did switch to water colors recently since they are cheaper. A good friend bought me some shoes for my birthday.
He wants to stay here. I am okay with that and always liked our apartment here. I told him let me investigate having us move somewhere cheaper, it hasn't gone well. I looked for apartments in the 500-800 range and even included other states. Sadly, I would never see some medical benefits again if I moved to some states. Oh I "make too much" for a lot of stuff now since all cut-offs for social services were kept at 2019 prices. They don't care that prices have gone up by 50 percent. I have explored what to do with the housing issues for a long time.
Housing Issues: Trying to Choose Where to Live is Not Easy
I didn't know what town to move to especially ones that had cheaper rent. I would rather stay here if I can, I'm used to the place. Every place has good and bad.
It can be hard to live in a town where everyone is wealthier than you, I've written about this already several times, though richer places have more resources we benefitted from too. It's complicated.
When you get old, you get tired of constant change. My family set up a life for me from all the moving and financial abuse to where I never got to have a "hometown" or a place to "belong". It is not a good feeling to be in your 50s and not know where to move to. I wrote about this very issue in the Economic Nomads article. Everyone in my life including friends is scattered here and there. There's a few regional friends I would rather stay living closer to.
My old small town is too economically demolished to go back to, and has too little medical care. Most people either have left or are deceased. Sadly, one of my friends there years ago wrote that the town had seriously declined, they had a homeless encampment there for a time in recent years. A couple friends even years ago told me, "Don't move back here!" One friend used the word "desolate" to describe things.
There was another small town I liked and considered, I visit the place a lot when I can, it's too remote though, not enough medical care, there's no pharmacy which is a big issue for me, and the water is bad, to the point people need to have expensive water filters. Every place has problems. Rentals are rare there too.
Another town I have considered and still thinking about, well, all the cheap apartments are small. They are in houses with stairs and those horrific claw-foot tubs. I can get 400 square feet for 660 dollars, but what do I do with all my stuff? My medical supplies, mobility--we both are on a walker, and hobby related items would fill the place up.
Some factors that apply here:
1. We both have clean records, and our credit is at a decent level now. I have some small medical bills I pay on now but that's it.
2. I have kept the rent paid here on time for years and years. I never have paid the rent late. I don't have any evictions on my record. Even in the poverty of Chicago, I kept all the landlords paid.
I like my present apartment, it is safe, quiet, they fix things and it's on the first floor so there are no stairs or elevator to worry about. I'm okay with staying here, there's just the money angle side of things.
The housing that is cheaper is so substandard, it brings up survival issues, with no air conditioning, endless stairs I can't do, and fears of crime, mice and roaches from my past. I joined all these neighborhood boards for one town I considered moving to for cheaper rent, and the place seems like a crime fest. There are meth heads all over and stolen motorcycles for some reason. Where I live now is calm compared to that place. The exterior of the town looks okay but I wondered about one apartment complex that had very small apartments [480 square feet] for 660 dollars when people on the board, said, "The pizza man won't even deliver pizza there!" That's not a good sign! My burn out at looking at endless all the same "cheap" apartments, hit new heights. They all looked the same. There were no deals. Everything looked very small, worn and broken down. It was depressing. Life for the poor in America is definitely getting worse.
I and my husband do not qualify for HUD. Even if we both just get Social Security and nothing else, we are still over the line. I think the cut-offs for married couples in my state are a joke. Who thought of all that?
So I found another low income senior/disabled housing program to apply to and went on the list three years ago. I don't want to get into detail here, it's a long story, but we got skipped on the list, and things were strange, the rules made no sense. All I can figure out is, the building manager may not like self employment. Maybe she doesn't like fat people? I don't know. Some rules of this other program which is unlike HUD disturbed me like finding out they could raise your rent mid-lease.
From what I can tell, they don't like any self-employment, at all. If your income changes every month and ours does. They don't like it. My husband will still have to do some work for us to survive even after he goes on Social Security. This is coming very soon. It is kind of nuts to me that supposedly no other old people do gig employment or self employment. How do they survive? Maybe there are no married people in these places. Something makes no sense.
The social worker, basically found out everything was HUD except the one place and "family housing". He found some cheaper complexes, but they were very broken down or had stairs. He told me, "You may have to go to a more populated area". Bigger cities are harder to get by in, they are more expensive, there's far more competition for resources. Been there, done that. There's one town I used to live in years ago, I won't go there, why? The place is overrun with the homeless. While they have some programs for them, tent cities have proliferated all over the town. Drugs are a huge problem. This is a sign of how bad the economy is. You won't hear this stuff in the news.
Where I live now, they treat me well, they even made some disability accommodations for me. So I had it very good on that score. We can get plumbing problems here but they have fixed them. There is far more risks in moving, people don't want to rent to supersized people. Housing can be scary for us. Landlords don't get medical reports detailing my Lipedema or other medical causes. They may think I am like the people on My 600lb life, and the pizza boxes will pile up or something. I have heard, "Will you go through the floor before?" when looking for apartments. I was told before a house apartment was "not available" years ago. One friend when I told her the subsidized story even said, "Your husband has long hair, maybe she though he was a druggie or something". We don't even drink.
I'll probably stay in the present apartment for now. One can't take secure housing for granted.
The cut-offs for married couples are so low for HUD to be laughable. I wanted to stay in the county for various things and activities but looked around just wondering what others pay. One day I looked up all the under 800 dollars a month apartments in my entire state. There were only 541. They were either in very remote towns with no hospitals, think 1000 people or less or in very crime ridden "ghetto" towns, think "Newark" NJ-- something along those lines. I was thinking of the budget arriving at the 800 mark to try and ease things up.
Cheap apartments were all alike. Stairs galore, nothing is built for disabled still, claw foot tubs, etc. They brought flashbacks to horrible places I lived in before, but even my boarding house rooms seemed in better shape in the 90s than what I saw. We haven't seen a mouse or a roach in 25 years. My husband has said, he wants to stay here.
My town should build some decent senior housing. [I hate elevators and towers] and or moderate senior disabled affordable housing. They need to step up on the ball. This whole process was harder and more disappointing than I expected. This apartment is good, I lived here long enough, except for the inspections, LOL
