I don't even know where to start. I am not the kind of person who asks for government help or help of any kind as I'd much rather make my own way. However, due to a few bad choices I found myself in need of some assistance. My little family of 4 lives far below the poverty line. Now I know that in America so many people have this mentality of "I want I want" and keeping up with the Jones, and they feel entitled or obligated to have a level of comfort in this wonderful country that we call America, but all I was trying to do was get a 2 bed room apartment for my family that is up to code. Where drinking the water won't make me vomit. Where I don't smell gas every time I turn on the stove or oven and the fan actually works to get the nasty gas and smells out of the house. Where we have a working smoke detector. Where there's not holes in the carpet all the way down threw the padding where when I try and vacuum it breaks my vacuum cleaner and more of the carpet comes up every single time. And a list of other things that make this place a terrible unsafe environment for children. A place that I could afford as they recently raised my rent here to a level that I simply can't afford. It was tight before, now it's impossible. I don't want to pay an extra 50 dollars a month so they can afford to keep their hot tub on. I'm sorry. If your going to raise my rent at least fix things around here. Anyways.
I got there at 8 pm as they told me that demand was high and to get there early in order to get a place in line. There were already 11 people in line ahead of me, some of them had been there since 5 PM. The office didn't open to take applications until 10 AM the following day. There were no restrooms. There was no garbage cans. There was no place nearby to get things to eat or drink. These people were all very nice people and you could tell just by looking at them that they too were in a very bad place. Either they didn't have any home at all or they were being abused at home and needed to get out. Some of them though were simply 18-20 year old girls who had gotten themselves knocked up and wanted to get out and start their own little family on the taxpayers dime. The girl next to me told me flat out that she could easily stay at home with her parents and raise her baby but she just didn't want to. It infuriates me that people like this abuse the system and then guess what, there's no help for the people who truly need it. Anyways. We stayed there all night. Some people slept, I myself couldn't I was so worried and nervous that I wouldn't get the help that I needed. Turns out I was right. Closer to morning some ghetto fabulous people showed up and they decided they were just going to push their way up to the front of the line. So now we are all standing waiting at the door for about 3 hours getting pushed to the front like we are at a concert. There's women who are 8 months preggo and I'm just expecting someone to bust their water the way things were going. The police were called. They threatened to shut the whole thing down. The residents from the apartment buildings who have to actually pay full price for their rent yelled insults at us and took pictures as they drove by. The police threatened to arrest us all. Now because I've had dealings with the police I know that would never happen because arresting 78 people is a lot of paperwork and that's just not going to happen. But they too insulted us and basically told us we were a bunch of dirt bags for even applying for this. So that was fun. Way to not do your jobs and not keep people safe Valpariso's finest.
Anyhow after all that I finally get in there and I do have the majority of the information I needed for the application. It would have been great if the applications were online or you could go ahead of time to get one so you knew all of the questions they were going to ask for. But no. They don't do that because they number the applications as you walk in the door (or rather get pushed in by the crazy crowd) and I guess they don't want people trying to say they were number whatever so you just have to kind of guess what they need and what they don't. After all that. I was number 15. I was thinking things were alright and it was going to work out but no. They give you a packet of what they look for to approve people and come to find out the fact that I have a foreclosure and a bankruptcy on my record made my credit too bad to approve me. The fact that I lost my house and NEEDED a place to live was the very reason I couldn't get one. Where is the logic in that? Never mind the fact that even before the bankruptcy went threw I've always paid my rent on time in cash on the first of the month. Never mind that since the bankruptcy I have done nothing but try and improve my credit. None of it matters. Not even the fact that I had to file bankruptcy because my at the time husband decided not to pay the bills- not because he couldn't afford to but because he wanted to run my good credit rating into the ground- and I was pregnant with his twins and no one would hire me- none of that mattered. You know it would have been nice if they would have told me what the requirements were ahead of time so I'd know not to even try because they weren't going to help me. Whats worse is some of the people who were with me and waited patiently like decent human beings they too for whatever reason were denied. It just breaks my heart that the people who really need this aren't getting the help that they need and people who defraud the system and lie their way in do. Is this my world? Is this the country that our military is fighting for? Why?
When people have no money isn't it just normal that the first thing to go is their credit rating? That they use credit cards to pay for luxuries like food and shelter and to keep the gas on? And then they end up defaulting because when you have nothing what else can you do? You know it wouldn't be so bad if it was just me I really wouldn't care but this is about my kids. My kids are suffering EVERY DAY for stupid decisions my ex husband made because he was mad at ME. How is that fair? He must really love them to have done these things to him but the funny part is he watched them overnight so I could go apply for this because he'd rather have his kids living in section 8 housing than where we are now because it truly is THAT BAD.
Anyways before you go judging people for using things like section 8 or food stamps or whatever they may be using you should really stop and think and quit steryotyping people by what they look like or where they live. You don't know what its like till you've walked a mile in their shoes. That is all.
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