I know yall probably know about poverty and generational poverty and what not but I just want to vent….
Because like… the things people don’t like know about generational poverty unless they’re experiencing it is just how… trapped you feel… weighed down by absolutely everything.
See I honestly think something may be up with our gas line
Which is a terrifying thought.
Now, idk if it’s a leak per se (though we’ve got the windows cracked just in case) but if we turn on our stove the gas smell is really strong, the flame flairs out of the sides of the stove, etc.
Shit that shouldn’t be happening.
Shit that is really fucking dangerous.
We know this is dangerous, we’re not stupid.
We know we should get it fixed.
But here’s the thing, okay?
The floors are just base boards, they’re falling in and there’s holes everywhere.
There’s rats that we’ve tried every trick in the book to get rid of, short of hiring an exterminator. We’ve borrowed traps, had traps “gifted” to us, tried poisons that friends and family have bought for us, etc. It cuts them down but they come back.
All of our food is in thick sealed plastic containers and yet they’ve eaten some of the containers open. They even ate our soap and makeup and cleaning supplies and that didn’t seem to stop them. (Our soap and cleaning supplies are now in plastic containers too but idk how long it will deter them, and the makeup is thrown away)
We have shoddy wiring in the house, done by my own grandpa back in the 70’s when they first bought this place.
Our roof has cracks in it that have failing patches, done by a family friend.
Our AC doesn’t exactly work very well and it’s been reaching 100°F weather (with 70% humidity no less) and to fix it we’d need $10k at least, but we’d also need new flooring, so it would likely be more than that…
And like, it’s not that the house is dirty, but that it’s falling apart.
And here’s the deal… calling someone who knows what’s what about houses to check the stove means calling someone who is going to inspect the whole house, someone who’s going to say:
“hey uh, your gas is messed up and your electricity is messed up and so’s your plumbing… Your floors are bad… we have to condemn this house and if you can’t pay to fix it up then you’re going to lose it.”
And it’s not like we got this house and destroyed it by a lack of maintenance, this house is like, 50+ years old, and has been my home since I was born.
My grandma and I couldn’t take care of everything because my grandpa had Alzheimer’s and he was going downhill and it was me and her caring for him.
My health is really bad and I can’t work a regular day job because of it, but I haven’t been able to hire a lawyer to apply for disability, so we’re living off one income and whatever side gigs I can do from time to time.
We don’t have the money to pay the mortgage, buy groceries, pay the home insurance, the gas bill, pay medical bills, buy pet food, etc and also then pay for our house to be inspected and potentially condemned for things I didn’t even do in the first place, things that came before I inherited this house…
My whole family has been poor my whole life, from my great great grandparents to my parents, etc.
It was always “you don’t pay for a professional to fix it, you either fix it yourself or get a family member or a friend of a friend to fix it”
Which means that if we ask a building inspector to tell us what’s wrong with the house… well… it’s going to probably be everything. Because this house has never been “professionally” fixed, it’s only ever had family members and friends of family members slap duct tape over glaring issues and say they’ll only charge you a glass of sweet tea.
Which means it’ll probably cost nearly the entire value of the house to fix tbh.
I just feel like I’m on a ship that’s sinking and way more water is coming in than I could ever manage to get out. I keep trying to patch the leaks but the materials just not available, and besides, if I stop bailing out the water for even a second to go and try and patch the leak, I’ll go fully underwater.
And you know, it’s not fair. It’s not right that it’s like this. This is our home and we love it. This has been my home for years and we love this house, this land, the trees and plants that grow, everything here is loved. It’s cared for. We try to take pride in it.
But you wouldn’t know that because we’re too busy trying to bail out that sinking ship. We’re too busy from constantly working and cleaning and repairing.
It’s not okay that it’s set up that way. We need help, we need community. We should be able to call someone and be like “Hey, we love this house, we’ve never been late on a payment, we’ve worked our butts off to try and keep things going, but we need help. Can you look at everything this house needs to function and be in good condition and help us get those things?”
Like, hell a payment plan option would work, wouldn’t it? Why isn’t that the done thing?
I mean, I know why, the more houses that are taken from the poor means the more real estate that’s available for the rich, they’re already trying to make our whole neighbourhood into some corporate venture instead of a residential area. And besides, if they manage to make us homeless they’d be just as happy throwing us in jail for the “crime” of being homeless and poor and making money off free labour.
Like that’s why it’s normal practice not to help anyone keep their home when they actually have a home. The system is set up for you to fail unless your family is at least moderately wealthy.
It’s just such an unforgiving cycle. And I know I’m beating a dead horse with this vent. I know that like over half of America’s population is likely in the same shitty place we’re in.
It’s just… I’m so tired of being in cycles like these.
I’m too sick to work, too poor to afford to get on disability, and both too poor and too exhausted to go to the doctor to get proper treatment, and it’s just a loop.
I’m too exhausted to fix the house, too busy cleaning the house to rest, too exhausted to make money to have professionals help fix the house, rinse and repeat.
The house breaking down is very likely making me more sick, but I’m too sick to be able to get the house fixed.
My grandparents didn’t have money to fix the house, my parents don’t have money to fix theirs, I don’t have money to fix my house.
Every step forward is like ten steps backwards and I genuinely don’t know what the solution to all of this is.
I feel so fucking trapped. I don’t even have the energy to run a gofundme for myself to try and get the help we need, because it takes so so much to to actually get a gofundme up and off the ground, I have tried before and it’s always been a failure because I just literally never have enough energy for it.
We have so many things we’d love to do. We’d love to make this house into an eco-friendly, sustainable home, with solar panels and a huge garden. We want to make a farm stand with fresh eggs and vegetables and fruit and let it operate on an honour system, so anyone who needs food can take what they need and pay what they can, yes even if it’s $0. I want to crochet hats and mittens and set those out too, for sale or just for those who need them…
We want so badly to take care of our community… but it feels like our community isn’t there to support us, not because people don’t want to support one another but because we’re all trapped or are being prevented from supporting one another.
Because having a farm-stand means you need to buy business licenses… building a sustainable home means you need to buy a building permit.
Every step of the way feels like good intentions are wasted, road-blocked.
I can’t even begin to explain how many jobs I’ve applied to, writing, editing, working as a cook or a waiter, data entry, etc.
In school they told me I’d be able to do anything I wanted to. I was a “gifted” straight A student and as I’m sure many people on this site know, that’s not bragging. It’s the opposite. The school system, the system that is supposed to help me be successful in life, told me I would be, and now I would be lucky to make $7.25/an hour while living in a place where the minimum liveable wage is $35/an hour.
It costs $35 an hour for one person to live moderately comfortably in my town. And this isn’t an arbitrary number, it’s literally on our county’s government ran poverty assessment website.
And that’s not a thriving wage it’s a surviving wage. It’s Home, Food, Utilities, Transportation & Clothes.
It leaves no room for medical care, comfort, entertainment, etc.
So what the hell are those of us who are working for anything less than that, or those of us unable to work, supposed to do?!
And like I said, I know I’m preaching to a choir rn, I know everyone is experiencing some version of this. I just… I need to be able to express it from time to time. To talk about how unfair and ridiculous and needlessly cruel this is.
It’s so deeply flawed and evil that we’re unable to have legitimate health concerns inspected because we’re worried about the house being taken away from us.
It’s trash. It’s inhumane.
And if anyone has any like… suggestions or advice that would be great… I’m considering just having our gas service canceled by our gas company and buying a small electric grill instead… but our gas also powers our hot water heater so…
