#i gave you three weeks? i gave you $130? why didn't you magically stop being disabled?

[horce-divorce]

The people who survive homelessness are the ones who are aware of wider structures at play, and who don't merely blame themsleves for their circumstances.

No amount of trauma-informed therapy and social work, no amount of waitlisting, no amount of phone calls or begging politely or anything else will fundamentally change the root issue: I am too disabled to earn enough money to live.

I've been doing this for 10 years now. Basically all I've known my entire adult life is homelessness. I'm tired. I know I'm "doing everything right," inasmuch as I'm able to. I can't go back to work or i would, but everything else? I apply for help. I get on waitlists. (The average wait is 8-10 years. I've only just gotten on the waitlist, after all this time.) I've asked churches for money and resources. I freelance and I sell what I can whenever I can. I go to food pantries, I barely even eat. I learn how to fix things myself. I take good care of me, as much as I can.

I go only where I'm invited. I never ask directly for help; only give people the option to. I never ask for seconds. I make myself smaller and smaller each time. And I wait. And I wait and wait and wait, like such a Good Boy, but master never lets me back into the house.