[Sean and Althea] My current situation

Hey, kiddos.

Yes, I know you’re not kiddos anymore. I used to roll my eyes when senior members of my family told me I would always be their baby/ their kid/ a kid to them, but now I get it. One day you will too, even if you never have kids of your own.

I had wanted to update both of you on my material situation considering what all happened this year, but didn’t want to speak up about it until I was fairly certain things really had gotten better. Well, maybe they’ve finally gotten better. So here’s what’s up.

I lived in my car for a little over a month from early January to late February. Probably closer to a month and a half.

A state trooper found me and gave me some numbers and so, through various means, I wound up staying in a homeless shelter in a town north of Columbus for another month and a half. I actually overstayed my welcome a bit, though I never strictly became unwelcome or else they’d have had the police escort me out, but I’d been having considerable trouble getting housed. Wound up finding a job before finding housing, and the job was in Columbus (Dublin, to be precise) so I decided it might be more worth my while to get into the Franklin County homeless system, so I checked out. Only to discover Franklin County has more a trainwreck than a system per se. Back to car living it was. For another couple weeks at least.

All this time, the Salvation Army’s veteran rehousing program had been trying to help me find a place, for some definition of “help.” The program involves them paying deposit and first month’s rent and other help to get me started in the housed life again. The first place we looked at, they paid the application fee for me and it set the expectation going forward, which they then skewered. I had been supporting myself with food delivery, but the homeless shelter’s supper curfew and bedtime curfew cut right into my prime time, especially on the weekends. I was also worried about my car, so that slowed me down too. So I didn’t have the money to fling around applying to places where landlords would suddenly remember they had renovation work to do on the exact unit I intended to move into, or where there was unrepaired water damage they were trying to fob off on me, or where the rent was unreasonably high for the prevailing wages in the area and also the delivery market was much, much smaller, or where I’d reach out to a landlord through some apartment-listing website only to get no answer or to have them ghost me as soon as I told them I was in a rehousing program. And don’t believe the rich fucks when they tell you they sUpPoRt OuR vEtErAnS. They knew I was one. It didn’t matter. Point is, the Salvation Army kept nagging me and not helping with application fees past the first one, and I kept hitting dead ends.

So when I left the shelter and wound up in my car, by that point the SA knew I was employed. So they reached out after a couple weeks’ worth of this and put me in a motel in Marysville, which is northwest of Columbus on US-33. Funnily enough it was an area I’d driven through many times before while doing longer-distance deliveries from Dublin, so I was not wholly unfamiliar. They paid for three weeks there. I started my first real job in twenty years still homeless. But I wasn’t sleeping in my car anymore.

The final straw on my apartment search was when I found a $650/month one-bedroom place just around the corner from your and your father’s usual pharmacy, Thea, and actually went over and saw the unit and told the rental agent my situation only to be informed fifteen minutes later that, quote, “we don’t take third-party checks for deposit or rent.” I had evidence of employment. I had a case worker willing to talk with them, who in fact did speak with the rental agent. Didn’t matter.

Fucking hell.

So. Last-ditch effort. I placed an ad on craigslist.

…Wait. What?

Yup. There’s a section where you can place an ad that you’re looking for accommodation. That’s exactly what I did. Without going into extreme detail — they shouldn’t have been able to identify me, I used the craigslist relay for my email, and I never had any problems from it — I outlined my situation and what had happened thus far and asked if there was anyone, ANYONE in the area around my workplace who was willing to work with me.

A couple weeks went by and nothing. I figured the ad had been flagged. That usually happens when I place ads there. I think people just don’t like to read.

And then someone emailed me.

So, after all that absolute shit, after going into exile for knowing what a woman is and what a liar is, after nearly a year in Whitehall, after bed bugs, after scrounging just to keep my head above water and trying not to kill my car, after countless job-hunt dead ends, after having to humiliate myself asking your dad (Thea) for help various times and wondering where the fuck I was going to end up?

Yeah… I’m in Dublin. IN Dublin. Proper.

Two bedrooms. In-unit washer and dryer. Free wifi and well water and no gas bill. Only electric for utilities. For $1000 a month (not counting electric). And ten minutes from work. Fifteen on a bad day.

I can walk to Meijer AND to Jeni’s. Mind. Proper. Blown.

This was not what I aimed for. I would have settled for our old apartment complex in Clintonville, Thea. For that matter, I would have loved that $650/month place — and I didn’t want it because of the nearby pharmacy. I’m easy. This is just what happened, and I’ve just about given up trying to understand it.

I cannot say my job thrills me; I hate talking to people on the phone all day long and I particularly hate being constantly dogged by the fear that I’ll screw up, despite having a really good (for my workgroup) quality average last month. The benefits are really good too, though. If I can get over to a sector there that isn’t phones in the next six months to a year, I suspect I’ll do pretty okay. I already have an idea of where I want to go. I just have to figure out how. If not, I’ll figure out getting somewhere else with similar benefits. I’m flexible.

I’m also not homeless anymore. That seems to be the most important thing at this point. It’s taken me over a month to come to terms with it. I kept waiting for everything to fall through.

[knocks on head]

But I’ve paid rent for the first time in almost two decades that didn’t come from your father (Thea), so I feel a bit better. When I find out what my electric bill’s going to be for this month, I’ll feel better still. Or I’ll faint. Either way.

So that’s where things have wound up. Long story short: From here on out I will be much more likely to lend my time and money and energy to the Salvation Army than I ever will again to some “LGBT” organization. The Corporate Alphabet People lost me my daughter and my old life. The Salvation Army housed me. It wasn’t all them; I did the legwork and I got myself the job, but if I’d had to live in an extended-stay suite again, it might have been next year before I could get proper housing. So I can’t ignore my own role in this, but the SA gave me the last leg-UP I needed to change my situation when the Ell Gee Bee Tee-Tees just wanted me to die in a fire. I know where my friends are. I’m not interested in their faith, but their works have been quite impressive.

Word to the wise, then: When we want to keep someone in our life, we don’t do it by telling them to fuck off. It took me twenty years for this lesson to sink in. I would like to see you learn it in fewer than five. What do you think?

I’m here. I’ve never been anywhere else. Your move.

Love,
Mom