When you become homeless you exchange one community for another.
The community you leave is your neighborhood - once stable housing; the people next door, the people across the street. You might wave to them everyday; they might wave back.
Life in the neighborhood isn't like it was years ago. Back then you knew your neighbors quite well. Neighbors were your extended family. When I was a kid, you hoped that your neighbor didn't see you doing something your parents told you not to do. Believe me, they knew what you were allowed and not allowed to do and they had your parents' blessing to reprimand you for it. If that wasn't enough, you knew you were going to "get it" from Mom or Dad too!
Neighbors were there to help. Neighbors watched out for one another.
Nowadays everyone is too busy to socialize. Mostly, you don't even know your neighbor's name.
The homeless have a community too; much like how life was in the neighborhood back before everyone was too busy to know one another. In the homeless community you make new friends, you see each other on the street, enjoy great conversation, you know each other's names and you help one another too. Want to find a meal site? Where to get free stuff? Ask a homeless person.
Things soon change once you get placed into housing. Sure you now have a place to call your own - if vouchers are available you get furniture, perhaps a TV, cookware - all the necessities.
Most likely, your rent payments are subsidized; based on income and your utilities are included. But with this good thing that you have received; that you have waited for to better your life. Getting into housing may mean, for some, isolation from the community that you've become accustomed to.
I faced this isolation like so many others leaving homelessness for that subsidized apartment.
What many don't know is that the disabled can get into housing quickly - for me it was 6 or 7 months.
The problems that the disabled face when getting into housing:
The community you leave is your neighborhood - once stable housing; the people next door, the people across the street. You might wave to them everyday; they might wave back.
Life in the neighborhood isn't like it was years ago. Back then you knew your neighbors quite well. Neighbors were your extended family. When I was a kid, you hoped that your neighbor didn't see you doing something your parents told you not to do. Believe me, they knew what you were allowed and not allowed to do and they had your parents' blessing to reprimand you for it. If that wasn't enough, you knew you were going to "get it" from Mom or Dad too!
Neighbors were there to help. Neighbors watched out for one another.
Nowadays everyone is too busy to socialize. Mostly, you don't even know your neighbor's name.
The homeless have a community too; much like how life was in the neighborhood back before everyone was too busy to know one another. In the homeless community you make new friends, you see each other on the street, enjoy great conversation, you know each other's names and you help one another too. Want to find a meal site? Where to get free stuff? Ask a homeless person.
Things soon change once you get placed into housing. Sure you now have a place to call your own - if vouchers are available you get furniture, perhaps a TV, cookware - all the necessities.
Most likely, your rent payments are subsidized; based on income and your utilities are included. But with this good thing that you have received; that you have waited for to better your life. Getting into housing may mean, for some, isolation from the community that you've become accustomed to.
I faced this isolation like so many others leaving homelessness for that subsidized apartment.
What many don't know is that the disabled can get into housing quickly - for me it was 6 or 7 months.
The problems that the disabled face when getting into housing:
- The housing may not be near stores, especially the supermarkets. You have food stamps but any financial assistance such as state disability ($115 mo. in Ohio) or SSI/SSDI may not have come through for you yet. No money means no way to get to the stores. Now you are house bound; isolated. What makes matters worse is that you don't have a phone either.
- Once you are placed into housing you are off your caseworker's books. There is no follow up; no additional help - they have washed their hands of you. If they are a good caseworker, they have hooked you up with services but more than likely they haven't.
- You might not have been placed into a good, safe building - just a building that will accept you and doesn't care about your credit rating. Having people knocking on your doors 24/7 wanting something is not fun (they aren't the disabled formerly homeless - they are crackheads!). Walking down 12 flights of stairs because the elevators haven't run for a week isn't fun either! And it's not a good idea to leave your apartment after 9 p.m.; you might be stabbed, robbed or raped in a stairwell or elevator. Zip code 44114 is much safer; despite the 130 plus sex offenders in that neighborhood.
What all this boils down to is why the formerly homeless return to the streets.
The Homeless Guy: Mile Stone
The above link is to Kevin Barbieux, The Homeless Guy who offers more insight about getting an apartment and his struggles with living there. I suggest his blog - bookmark it. It's a good read.
The Homeless Guy: Mile Stone
The above link is to Kevin Barbieux, The Homeless Guy who offers more insight about getting an apartment and his struggles with living there. I suggest his blog - bookmark it. It's a good read.
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