Here’s why it’s so difficult to obtain a place to live when you’re #homeless:

– must be making 3x the rent
– background check (which you pay for)
– application fee ($25-$100 depending on the company)
– credit check (which you pay for)
– first month’s rent + deposit (or first + last + deposit)
– pet fees (if you have them)…anywhere from $50 – $400 *per* pet
– 6 months on your job

This is what landlords want.

I just got paid yesterday. (Never mind that PayPal is holding the majority of the funds because apparently they didn’t like me receiving it).

I want to give you a real, honest-to-goodness picture of where a person without a home’s $ goes:

So far, out of the $300 PayPal released to me, I’ve spent about $50 in food, and about $100-ish in gas. I also purchased some small amount gift cards to give to some homeless people I met. I have a little over $90 left.

We burned through nearly an entire tank of gas yesterday trying to locate a place to sleep. Finally, we decided to sleep in a Walmart parking lot (it’s free to park overnight there). We felt unsafe and had to leave, driving another 80ish miles to find a rest stop.

That’s $52, gone.

It’s impossible to save enough money for a deposit and first month’s rent, application fees, etc., when you don’t already a place to live.

All your resources go to trying to sleep, eat, and function.

Even if I did have 3 months’ rent laying around, my credit is jacked from the financial difficulty that led to the homelessness, so no landlord would touch me. I’ve only been on my job a month, not six. I can’t take the risk of applying and spending money on an app fee only to be rejected. As far as income goes, I make what I consider to be good money but I definitely do not make 3x the cost of rent right now (U.S. average is $1,164).

If I rent a fleabag hotel tonight so we can shower and sleep in real beds, that’s essentially $100 I’m out — and then it’s right back to the car the next night. Laundry needs doing, oil needs changing…the list goes on.

A lot of you have reached out to me and asked me how you can help. I really appreciate that, and I’ve expressed that I didn’t feel right accepting money. It’s true, I got paid yesterday, but that will not lift us out of homelessness, just like it doesn’t lift anyone else in this situation out…especially those on limited income like disability and Social Security.

And honestly, I don’t feel deserving of your cash when there are so many others who need help, too.

If you don’t already have a home, money slips through your hands before you can ever *get* a home.

What we really need is affordable housing.

We NEED affordable housing in the U.S. and we need it now.

I encourage you to petition your local legislators for more affordable housing. And give to the homeless people around you. One or two dollars really does ease the burden. I can’t tell you how happy we were to have hot food and cold drinks yesterday!

#homelessnessawareness

LinkedIn comment #1:

Again, thank you to everyone who reached out and asked how they can help my family during this challenging (and extremely stressful) time. If you or someone you know has a home they’d consider renting to us, (a weekly cabin rental or anything lol) please let me know.

And please don’t forget…there’s thousands of families like ours. Kindness is everything.

This is the 4th post in a series I’ve been writing on LinkedIn about our family’s homelessness. I started writing because I felt like God was directing me to share the reality of what many people are facing in the U.S., and put a new face to homelessness. I’m a young professional with a disabled child, with a mom who’s health has seen better days, and two obnoxious dogs. But homelessness doesn’t care who you are, and it affects thousands of people every day. I hope that by reading our stories from the road, your beliefs about homeless people will be challenged, and you’ll be spurred to cause change. Nobody should ever be homeless. Nobody.

It occurred to me that I should probably start posting outside of LinkedIn, just in case others would be interested in our story. I hope that documenting this experience will open people’s eyes about the homelessness problem in the United States (and around the world, even). I never posted to get a hand out or a hand up. I only wanted people to be as upset as I was that ANYONE has to live this way. So I’m posting these things in the hopes that doing so will light a fire under people to make a difference. To treat each other better. To look out for each other. To stop judging and start helping. Thank you for reading & God bless you.