Wednesday, September 5, 2018

This week and next week, I have some major things that I have to do for my housing situation.

I am nowhere near being able to rent an apartment.  What I have to do is to try to coordinate help from social services to address my particular situation.  

There are probably people who don't know what it's like to be a homeless person who tries to tell social services about things such as:

-code that is being broadcast 

-famous people knowing who you are

-having your phone, email, and every other electronic profile hacked

-having your purchases, even from food stamps, tracked and having the marketers for some of the food that you buy change their advertising to sexually harass you in their ads and on their product labels

-being stalked

-having hidden and illegal cameras in your bathroom

-being evicted, twice in a row, for objecting to being criminally victimized by voyeurism in two separate apartments 

-being targeted as voyeuristic prey by advertising on the billboards on the homeless shelter where you live  

-being targeted as voyeuristic prey on banners, approved by the Mayor's office, that are strung from light posts throughout the city

-being targeted as voyeuristic prey by movies, songs, music videos, social media, the traditional media, small and large businesses, cultural institutions, and ads on television, the Internet, and through all available means of mass communication


My having a previous psychiatric history is helping me not to be permanently discouraged by the skepticism, although it's not helping people to believe me. The process of working through that skepticism on the schedules of people who only have time to talk to me once a week or not at all is arduous and frustrating.  I almost wasn't given an extension for my Section 8 housing voucher; I spent several weeks advocating for that from July to August, and it's only been extended until October.  If there isn't an apartment for me to apply the extension to before the voucher expires, I'll have to request another extension, which there is no guarantee will be granted to me, or I'll lose the voucher and be unable to pay rent.  

I'm not going to make this page about my anger toward the people who have no idea what it's like to be poor and who laughed at all of my requests that someone corroborate that I was telling the truth about the voyeurism in my last apartment, which would have stopped that eviction.  I am not going to make this page about people who have so much money that they can trash every place where they ever live and never be homeless, while I can't stop crime from being perpetrated against me in my own home because I am poor.  

What has happened to me is a danger to everyone who lives in affordable housing. Twice in a row, the example was set that property managements and maintenance people can install hidden, illegal cameras in low-income dwellings and that the tenants have to live in criminal violation of their privacy rights or be called crazy liars and evicted if they object to that outrageous abuse.  

My poverty doesn't make me a loser.  I have declined many personal and professional options for being a millionaire because I didn't want my integrity or ability to be impartial to be compromised.  I have avoided meteoric changes in my fortunes, and a lifetime of abuse is not what I deserve for my decisions.