The latest trend - being homeless for the 1st time ever....

So the other day, walking through the Seattle Central Library I saw some 'art' talking about homelessness.  The thing that caught my eye was that over 50% of those who are homeless, are homeless for the first time in their lives. I'm not sure if my recent experience was the first time I was homeless, but it was the first time that I was homeless without a job or a home to return to at all.  In the past I always had a job while I was homeless so that I could afford a hotel, or I had an apartment that I could eventually return to... once I was ready to face the violence that existed there.

This time, starting in August of 2016 I was homeless with my belongings on my back (or being pulled behind me), and I sincerely had no where to go. How did I get this way?  Well, after 16 years of working in I.T., I came down with neuropathy.  Neuropathy causes numbness and severe pain in your nerves.  In my case it affected both my hands, and my both my legs. The legs I could live with (although it requires that I use a cane most days), but the hands caused me severe issues.

Along with neuropathy, I have epilepsy that causes me to 'twitch' or 'jerk' when I'm hit by a seizure. At the last place I worked, epilepsy caused me to jerk my hands and I'd end up submitting information that I wasn't quite done working on. As a result my co-workers lost faith in my ability to do the job.... I can't blame them.  I'd assume the same thing in their shoes. Since then (end of 2015) I've found medication that stops the jerking and, for the most part, stops the neuropathy symptoms in my hands and arms.

After losing my job at the end of 2015, I was forced to live on my savings and the measly amount of unemployment I got.  Thanks to WA state not being able to file paperwork correctly, I only received half of my unemployment (I'm still trying to get a court case to get the other half - they misfiled paperwork when I was on unemployment in 2012 and in 2013 I moved without forwarding my address as I was trying to escape the ex- who caused the violence that I mentioned above (to summarize the state owes me just over $5000, but instead their incorrect records show that I owe them $25K!!!!)

Back to homelessness though - on the 7th floor of the Seattle Central Library I noticed a scrolling ad that mentioned that over 50% of those who are homeless are homeless for the first time.  This led me to ponder whether my current homelessness was officially my 1st time being homeless or if I was truly homeless before?

Whatever the answer, I do know that the past 6 months of my life have been some of the most difficult months of my entire life. I often find myself laughing at quotes like "Homeless people *want* to stay homeless because it's easy money".  In the past 6 months I've spent more time in lines and working on getting benefits than I ever did when I had a 40/hr per week job!!!  And for far less return. Currently I only get $197 a month for disability benefits from the state and $194 in food stamps.  Formerly I made $5500/month AFTER deductions!

Thanks to increasing my medication to almost the maximum dosage,  my neuropathy in my hands has minimized enough that I think I can return to work. At least I hope so.  I figure I won't actually know until I'm working on a daily basis. Trying to return to the white collar world from a homeless state of being is another adventure I'm finding is much more difficult than one would expect. For instance, do I take my rolling suitcase with me in to interviews? And if not, what do I do with it?  There is no where homeless folks can get short term storage for their belongings and using a regular storage place is far more expensive than I can afford. Leave it with 'friends'? Unfortunately, most 'street friends' are more likely to barter all your belongings before you get out of your interview.

Oh - before I start telling my story since August 8th (I've written the entire thing down in a number of different notebooks) I want to mention that this is all from my perspective and names of people have been changed to protect their identities.