The System is Meant to Break You

By every person's standards I've been homeless for just over a week. February 20th was my official move out day. I was so exhausted I barely even cried as I pulled out of my complex. By HUD's standards I'm not homeless because they don't count couch surfing as truly homeless. You must be sleeping in your car or living outside in a tent or under a bridge. I can't even stay in a hotel. So I have to put myself at risk to my health to try to get some kind of emergency housing. So, as of this coming weekend I have no choice but to start living in my car with my ESA cat Snow. 

She's going to hate it. I have a kitty harness and blankets for her, and I'm thinking of ordering a little sweater for her just in case it gets super cold again, as the most snowy months in Denver are in March. 

The worst of today was finally getting my scheduled call from Arapahoe County Health and Human Services office, and the lady called nearly 30 minutes late. She starts asking me about what I'm applying for and I'm like, I need to fill Medicaid coverage, to which she replies, you already have the coverage you qualify for. I was like, no that was done based on the inclusion of my son's income when we were still living together. She immediately gets rude with me and was like, no you don't qualify for anything else, that's what you qualified for, and I'm like no, what I have doesn't cover prescription coverage. I need the full Medicaid coverage. And she was like I'm not even going to look at that because you already qualified for what you have. I'm like please don't do that, how am I supposed to afford my medications? She's like you'll have to call Medicaid to figure that out. 

Them this woman is like let's go over your assets. Do you have this bank account, yes I do. Ok, how about this joint savings account with $800 in it. I was like there's no joint account, and there wasn't even a joint account when I applied this past fall. I already have you guys my information to correct this, I was there when the lady did it, and that was the second time it was supposed to have been done. She corrected it in the system while I was sitting there. My case got escalated to the state she eat like they're is an account, it's a joint account, I have it right here. I was like there's no way you do, no account exists. She got so belligerent she was like I'm going to end this call with you and it'll be written down as a no show, which means I get in trouble for it when I try to make another appointment. She was like where's the Nissan versa? I was like omg, I have that information to two separate people as well. I haven't owned that car in several years. She was like are you telling me I don't know how to do my job?! I was begging for her to let me talk to her supervisor, and she refused. She refused to give me her name. She threatened to stop the call if I didn't stop talking. She agreed like she hung up the phone and wouldn't speak at all. They've completely built a system that is meant to absolutely break you. So now I can't even get the food stamps I need to fucking feed myself because I needed to really to get all this fixed. I can't even afford my meds now because I needed to get the full Medicare. This woman literally had her life in my hands and she used it to try to gaslight me and to abuse me. 

Then I was on a zoom call earlier today, and the guy running the call said we have about 20,000 people applying to get on the housing lottery each year. That's not even to get actual housing, that's the the lottery to get on the lottery. This is outrageous! It's a man made problem because they think we're all just worthless. They build housing with 63 units in a year and think that's progress. That's not progress, that's a drop in the bucket! But who cares about disabled people and poor people! We just live in forced poverty and it's every man for himself to try to get housing. We can't possibly give them higher SSI and SSDI, raise minimum wage and build way more subsidized and HUD housing. They've created this problem that they don't want to fix. 

They want us all to just disappear. They built an impossible system that no one can navigate, where they hold all the control and you have to beg to get them to listen to you and how they'll fix things and if they decide they don't like the way you're talking to them or the info they give is incorrect and you explain that to them you're just SOL, because then the person you're trying to get help from will just hang up on you and you're screwed again. I'm honestly sick and tired. I feel like I'm very close to my breaking point.