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I have killed SIX cockroaches today.
I have blocked off all of the dead vents in my apartment because I’m positive that’s where the roaches are getting in.
I’m no longer stuck in here with you, you’re stuck in here with me fuckers.
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Well. I’ve been trying to get out of Cowtown for years. I’ve been trapped here for over a decade.
I got the call today that after being on the waitlist for over a year and doing SO much work to get papers in that I’m approved for a low income apartment in the big city. This is great! But…
The rent they’re planning to charge is over half my monthly income. And before I can even think about moving in I have to make $1300 minimum appear just to pay rent where I live now and first month’s rent with a deposit for the new place. This wouldn’t cover anything like renting a Uhaul or getting people to help me move or any transfer fees.
I have $6 in savings.
I’m considering starting a GoFundMe to try and raise the money to move with but I don’t know if it’s even worth trying right now. Everyone is in such dire straits these days. I might be able to get that rent price talked down on Wednesday but I don’t have much faith in that. Maybe I could survive a year with rent so high if I knew things might get better…
I don’t know. I really want this. I’m dying in this damn town. I have needed out for years. And I finally have a chance… only to have it taken away by an amount of money that is nothing to most people.
I don’t know what to do. Is it worth it to even try raising that money in a time like this? Do I just give up and hope that maybe next year something will go my way?
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I’m moving to my own place now I said no more toys and stickers and posters everywhere. I’m an adult 👩
I jinxed it haha
To quote my grandma who has been gone many years. “Paying the rent means it’s yours to decorate” well… unless your landlord is like strict as hell, but I digress
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It’s my yearly “Will you not let be homeless just for one more year, sire?” low income housing recertification….
Cleanest my apartment is?
Day of inspection.
Dirtiest?
Day before inspection.
Dear god, do I regret not doing 3 weeks worth of dishes (I was washing them as I needed them). Took me a good part of a hour! AND I got to make sure to put them away, cuz they need access to my stove (which is where most clean dishes are residing.)
I hate my inspection. Cuz tho I just spent the good part of my day cleaning, they’ll find something wrong. They always do. Then they come BACK to verify what you messed up is fixed. Last year? “Dirty stove.” It was WASHED! The tin things in the burner get ruined over time; wear and tear. Not DIRTY; used up. I had to buy a new one.
And cuz I do not trust them (low income housing is ran like a business. HARD), I had a feeling last year when I was going to sign the paperwork, they were going to try to sneak in and check my apartment behind my back for the 30 minutes it took to do it (they could have come ANYTIME between 9-5). They did. Know how I knew? I purposely put a chair in front of my door you would HAVE to move to get in (and closing the door while moving the chair was quite a trick.) She came in “How did you close your door with that chair in the way?” To which I should have retorted ‘Why the fuck did you choose the ONLY 30 minutes I wasn’t in my apartment to check it?’ Cuz I have made it CLEAR AS DAY: unless I have prior obligations, I NEVER want them in my apartment without my presence. I have NO privacy; so I’m going to take the LITTLE I can get. I don’t even have my name listed at the door! I like people fucking off and not bugging me.
<Another year? I had ONE dirty shelf in my fridge. So I took out every fucking piece and washed it by hand this year. TRY ME!>
(My guess they’ll complain? My house is a MESS <Not dirty. Just a bunch of paperwork and old clothes I should have taken to goodwill or thrown out everywhere>, BUT, not on ANYTHING that belongs to the housing commission. So they can’t complain. My shit on my shit.)
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The ways in which living in the low income housing is a paid for person cell. 1-cameras everywhere. Recording 24/7. And they do watch them. They’ve actually pulled me in and asked me about something I’ve done on camera. 2-not allowed Firearms of any kind. So I literally have less rights than a USA citizen. 3-they are strict regulations on which pets I can own. Just this year they allowed rodents. But one. They are social creatures. They get depressed without company. And I’m not allowed any kind of reptiles or insects. 4-if I make more money, they take more money. In other words I can never really truly Escape here unless I got a stupidly high paying job. 5-no smoking allowed in your apartment. I get that to a degree, but at the same time, you’re forcing disabled people out in insane weather just to smoke. That’s kind of cruel. 6-any specific guests cannot stay more than 15 nights overnight in a single year. I’m not joking that’s a real rule.7- bed bug checks every 3 months even if you never had bed bugs. 8- anytime they have to do repairs, they’ll give you notice ahead of time, but they’ll let themselves in if you’re not home. 9- it’s against the rules to have an add a lock. It’s an additional lock you can put on your door. It’s ran by magnets and stuff. You’re not allowed to use those. 10- they have a PA system that they used to regularly use every day. Enough people complained so they only do it in extreme situations. Like when they need God damn carts return to the community room for others to use. I will admit it’s kind of annoying how many people will take a cart and keep it in their apartment. 11- we don’t control our own heat! The thermostat does NOTHING! I knew this for years. But they would not admit to it until last year. They said we’re going to change it so they control it now. You always were. It never made sense how a hot water system could be hotter in one area and cooler in another if it’s all interconnected. 12- it’s ran like a business. Even though they don’t always have all the apartments full, they still look for any reason to kick somebody out. Even the smallest of transgressions. And personally? I think they single out people who have been missing rent payments. I hate living here. No nature. Rules to follow like I’m a child. No privacy….ugh.
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I hate living in low income housing. It is a paid for prison cell. Just this year, literally this year, they allowed rodents to be pets. But they would not allow more than one guinea pig. And I’ve owned guinea pigs multiple times. Owning one guinea pig is cruel. Unless you’re literally home 24/7, they are social creatures and need constant attention. I just called and asked if we’re allowed snakes. Because where I work has a snake that is on sale and it’s the nicest snake I’ve ever seen in my life. I have never in my life considered owning a snake till this year. I was told no. Because living in low income housing, you literally have less rights than the average USA citizen. I can’t even own a gun. I’m not joking. We have less rights here because we’re poor. AKA you pay for your rights in the United States of america. So to anybody who says the USA is the freeest country I say you’re the dumbest fucking person I know. Also you should shut up and nobody listen to your fucking stupid opinion. I genuinely think anybody who has the USA flag in front of their house is one of the lowest IQ people around me.
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Add your name as a grassroots co-sponsor of the H2O UP Act to help families afford water bills
Add your name as a grassroots co-sponsor of the H2O UP Act to help families afford water bills
In 2021, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell helped secure more than $1.1 billion in federal funding to assist low-income households who need support in paying off their water bills and paying for fees to reconnect their water service. But that emergency funding ran out and millions of families urgently need assistance to access clean drinking water.
So the Representatives just introduced the H2O UP Act (Half-Century Update for Water Access and Affordability Act) to establish the first-ever permanent federal low-income water affordability program.
The affordability program would provide financial assistance to low-income households for drinking water, including direct financial assistance, debt relief, and support with reconnection of services and water efficiency. Within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the program would also prohibit water shutoffs and provide technical assistance for community water systems.
To make sure it gets implemented on the ground in a way that’s equitable and changes people’s lives for the better, the legislation will establish Community Advisory Committees comprised of low-income residents, nonprofits, water utilities, and other stakeholders in each EPA region to advise the EPA.
Will you sign on as a grassroots co-sponsor of the new H2O UP Act to ensure safe, affordable water for all low-income U.S. households? Add your name today.
@tenaflyviper
@ifihadaworldofmyown
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the fact that low income housing often includes restrictions like “no over night guests” or “no sleep overs in bedrooms” for adult renters is so offensive
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“It May Be War, But Housewives Are Riled Over Flooding of Street,” Windsor Star. August 1, 1942. Page 3, 5 & 10.
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THERE’S water, water everywhere on Central avenue, near Tecumseh-road and the residents of the wartime house in the muddy flooded area are threatening to refuse to pay their rent until something is done to take the water away. Picture at top left shows neighborhood children splashing over the original roadway. The mud will be tracked into houses and round into new carpets, housewives say. At top right, a car is shown moving at moderate speed through a puddle. The spray covers the sidewalks and lawns, ruins clothes and automobile finishes, as well as all the neighborhood tempers. Below, company has called at one of the houses and the occupants of the car are having a hard time trying to find a place to bring their car to dock.
Housewives Are Militant
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Men on Central Avenue Also Fighting Mad About Flood
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Occupants of Wartime Housing homes on Central avenue, near Tecumseh road, are ready to do battle over muddy water which has an in the street for two weeks Some are refusing to pay their rent until the muddy flood is taken away, House wives are militant over mud-tracked rugs. Some attribute sore throats to the flood, and a few of those inclined to take the situation less seriously have spoken of building landing docks.
WATER AND MUD
A reporter and photographer of The Windsor Star plowed through the yellow-brown sea of Central avenue 13 hours after the heavy rain had stopped yesterday. In some places the sidewalk is buried under mud throw up by swashbuckling auto automobiles. In me places the water is almost a foot deep All boulevards are mires. Mud has been splashed half-way up the front walk of the trim little homes out there. Housewives stand in doorways with a gleam in their eyes that bodes no good for someone each time a car cleaves the water.
There are sewers on Central Avenue. But the sewers are placed at each end of the block, and the roadway has sagged in the centre, so that the sewers gleam as freshly as when installed, while only a few feet away, children splash, sail boats, and distraught parents scream at them to get out of the mud and into a tub immediately.
There are threats on the smouldering battlefront of Central avenue sea today. They’re the threats of a legion of women who are fed up with having to clean house every day with a mop: the threats of young women who no longer dare walk down the sidewalk that are covered by mud, for fear of finding their white summer clothes spotted with brown by passing cars; there are threats from men whose cars need rewashing each time they leave home; there are threats from those who want to entertain company and are ashamed of their neighborhood: there are threats from distraught mothers who blame the condition of the streets for sore throat.
WOMEN INDIGNANT
Several of the women are going to swing into action today. They said their rents are due now, but that no. one is going to get a penny until the street is fixed and their homes become “decent places to live in, instead of pigpens.”
“My little girl has bronchitis,” said the occupant of one house. “She’s three years old, and when she goes out to play she gets in all that filth. There is mud everywhere. I don’t think we should stand for it.”
“It’s a mess” complained a second. “My husband went down to the board of health and they told him they couldn’t do anything about it. I’ll tell anyone that wartime housing is certainly far from healthy. Why I had company here, and I was so ashamed. They got stuck in the mud. We’re not going to pay our rent until this street is fixed. My husband cut a downhill drain for part of the street, but that doesn’t help much. Everyone gets splashed with mud. It gets tracked into the house. I’m just sick about it.”
“It’s a disgrace,” said a third. “All my children have had infected throats since then floors came, and I blame that water out there for it. It’s terrible. It isn’t healthy. I had a boy guest visiting here from Pleasant Ridge. He comes from a fine home. They have a maid. Every time he went outside, he came in covered with that filth from head to foot, and I had to put him in the tub. It’s been this way for two weeks. I’m not going to buy a carpet until that street is fixed. I’m polishing floors all day long.”
MOTORIST ANGERED
“I’ve got a good mind to send some- one the bill for washing my car,” said an irate motorist, who had just met another ca. in midstream. “Every time I go through here, the car is coated with muck from bumper to bumper. If any windows are open, it’s even worse.”
“It’s awful,” said a fifth. “I came here last March from the West, and I couldn’t even get out of the taxi. I ruined my shoes. They should have decent drains here. I can’t keep my rug cleaned. It’s always full of mud. I can’t even let my children come in their own home the front way, they get so messy from just walking on the sidewalk. The Wartime Housing people say it’s up to the city to fix, and the city passed the buck to the Wartime Housing. Let me tell you, it’s going to be just too bad for the city if I get sick as a result of this. I’d be ashamed for my friends out West to see the way we have to live. I have to pay my rent tomorrow, and I don’t think I will, until this is fixed. There’s no road. There’s not even a side-walk. It’s all mud. Mud everywhere!”
Said a sixth: “You might as well be living on the battlefront. They say that the men in factories are the men behind the men behind the guns. I agree with them. We live in mud too. What’s the use of trying to look clean and dainty when all you have to do is to step outside your house when a car passes and get drenched in that awful smelly stuff.”
And a seventh: “Cars are getting stalled in that goo all the time. We aren’t even sure of our deliveries any more. We women out here are tired of talking. It’s about time we had some action. If the city won’t take the action, and the Wartime Housing won’t take the action, then we women will!”
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Developer may pay fee rather than build affordable housing - OPB
Developer may pay fee rather than build affordable housing
On today’s episode of Let’s Eat the Rich… the new Ritz Carlton in Portland (which one was already getting backlash for kicking out of PDX’s iconic food card pods in order to start construction) would apparently rather pay millions in fines than allow any low income units to be built (…which they’d still be making $$$ from).
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Landlords who treat low income tenants like shit are the worst. It’s like they get off on the fact that most of us are a paycheck away from being homeless
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January 20 2023
Got a letter from one of the housing agencies I applied to. Wrote back to them to let them know I am still interested in a low income housing setup. I may be moving up the list to get my own place real fast. I’ve been on a waiting list for almost two months now. My first choice of places would be in the Oklahoma City area. My second choice would be in Kearney, Nebraska. I lived in Kearney for…