My Story: It’s More Than Just Economics, Housing Impacts Foster Care, Domestic Violence, and Mental Health Too

Upfront- I’m sorry this is long. My friends in Germany (originally from Canada) forwarded me the billboard pictures and told me about this subreddit. So I’ve been reading now and then. They encouraged me to join and share my personal story and views on why and how housing impacts more than just numbers and graphs and economics. I also apologise for any typing mistakes because I’m typing on a phone. I started writing this back in June and it took some time for me to sit with it.I’m from and now live in rural BC. I grew up in foster care. I was placed in foster care because my single mother struggled finding adequate housing and stayed in an abusive relationship to keep a roof over our heads. The situation was eventually deemed unsafe and I was removed when I was around 3/4 years old. She tried hard to get me back, but ended up taking her own life before I entered Grade 3. I was bounced around to new homes all the time, multiple times in a year. I think my count was 11 schools in total I attended. When I was 14, the family I was placed with showed interest in keeping me. Then I faced mental, physical, and sexual abuse at their hands. I ended up running away several times because I couldn’t last. I only finished high school by the grace of a couple teachers and I got into university. Then I went to Vancouver to attempt university but ultimately I failed because of how little support I had and lots of unresolved trauma.There’s a strong link between foster care and homelessness.There’s also a strong link between foster care and experiencing violent and damaging relationships.These are all impacted by housing and infect our society.There are so many logistical issues that people don’t consider when you’re transitioning from being a ward to being an independent adult. It’s not just getting a mortgage down payment. There’s no Bank of Mom and Dad for me obviously. I will never inherit or have the chance to inherit anything. Nothing. Absolutely not a damn thing.But there’s also no one to co-sign for apartments. If you can’t even get an apartment on your own, you can’t build up a good rental history. I always had to offer up extra on the side because I didn’t have a cosigner to even get a bunk bed to sleep in. I had to take shady sublets and basically illegitimate rental situations to get by. I’ve had the bottom dregs of roommates. I would take ANYTHING over being one of the folks on DTES and sleeping on the ground with rats covering me. I was trying to do everything right and take it on the chin.Not only that, my social network is extremely limited due to constant instability of moving and not having a family to lean on for a social network. I moved around so much, I never got to develop deep friendships. My life has always felt tenuous so even building friendships has been difficult for me. Without a deep social network, without family, it becomes harder to find places to rent and harder to find jobs that pay enough to afford rent. It feels like you are constantly being pulled down into quicksand. There’s no one to call for support and the few friends who I managed to keep were already tired of dealing with someone like me who has you know, problems.In my middish 20s, I started dating this guy and we moved in together pretty quickly so we could save on rent. We rented a studio because that’s all we could afford. At first, it was a relief to not be so temporary and not have to share spaces with so many people and argue over food/dishes/who’s going to clean.The relationship wasn’t great tbh before we moved together, then it soured. We were on top of each other in that small studio space. He became physically violent and where could I run? We didn’t even have a door on the bathroom for me to hide. Just a curtain. He was a lot larger than me and I couldn’t and just didn’t fight back. I suffered at least 4 concussions that I can remember, several black eyes, broken finger, and bruising.I couldn’t leave him without leaving housing though. I tried making plans and look at renting rooms, but I was “too old” aka about to get into my 30s to rent with students who were splitting accommodations. Even at 28-29 I was getting that. Or I didn’t have a cosigner. Or I didn’t have enough on the spot and someone else would rent it because they had all the cash at once. I was asked often about “where my boyfriend or partner is” to rent with because I couldn’t afford it on my own. I couldn’t qualify based on anything I made. I was making minimum wage and having to call off or cut my hours because I was in pain from a concussion or soreness from being tossed against a wall or throwing up all night from stress.When I told my manager at the place I was working at the time that I was trying to leave my boyfriend and I had been abused, he brushed it off and said it was inexcusable to miss work and implied maybe I was a problem at home like I was at work. It wasn’t a funny joke.Again, I didn’t have a family to call or go run to when I had this situation. I don’t have a mom to call to go crash with or an uncle or can let me stay at their cabin. I don’t have sisters or brothers to lean on.The thing that no one wants to hear is that domestic violence and mental health services are there for you to call and to get on a list but not to access. Most DV programs place a super high priority on people with kids. Which makes sense. But it’s very very frustrating people just handing you a list of services over and over again and having to act super grateful when you know you’re already on the list and there isn’t actually help available. A list isn’t help. A phone line isn’t help.It’s easy to see why older people and single folks get skipped over for the most “in need”. If you’re being threatened with a gun or knife it’s easy to intervene. If you’re “just” getting your head pummeled against a wall, it’s not seen as severe. It’s difficult to navigate getting services and if you’re like me, dealing with the province from a young age, you’re just used to getting let down over and over and over again. And as soon as they hear you’ve been in foster care? They write you off because they know you don’t have the support to get through.After the last incident, I told him I went to the police. He left in the middle of the night back to his hometown. Of course, I was still responsible for the apartment’s total cost. It was an apartment I couldn’t pay for on my own so I took out pay day loans and cash advances, whatever I needed to do to make up for the lost income and just eventually got myself into a giant debtor hole. I resolved to come back to the interior because “it’s cheaper here” as people say. But it wasn’t long before I felt more isolated, I’m struggling for work and housing here too.As a result of my abuse, I have pretty triggering anxiety, lots of fears, and poor self-esteem. I have trouble sleeping. I have on/off eating disorders to try to gain control of my life that worsens in homelessness. My food supply is incredibly inconsistent and mostly peanut butter, crackers, and cookies. I can’t even remember the last time I ate fish. Living in motels or staying at campsites means you have very limited cooking options and food storage options. You get a microwave and a mini fridge at best in a motel. I’ve had my stove and cooler stolen out of my car. I work at a fast food place solely because I know I will be guaranteed to eat something hot and I cram extra lettuce on my sandwich to get something close to a vegetable.The food bank here hands out raw meats and canned goods. My can opener was stolen from my car and how the fuck could I ever prepare a turkey in a motel room?The head trauma also left me with vertigo issues. I have bad hearing in one of my ears also due to being hit there I think. I don’t have an official “condition” just after effects of a brain injury and an emotional/mental health that feels perilous. Unfortunately the jobs available to me are ones that require standing for loooong periods of time- retail and food service. I passed out at the last few jobs I worked at and it’s why I was let go. I’ve had seizures twice. I never ever had seizures or passed out growing up, but here I am an adult. This all started after my 2nd bad concussion. I still work part time, but short shifts because my body hits a wall from the lighting and standing. Oh and our place of work decided it would rather close and operate only a shortened times to ensure that none of my coworkers could get full time hours. (Nobody wants to work….but here are folks begging for it!)In the last year, I’ve lost 2 rooms I was subletting due to houses being sold. I lost another at the end of September, so I’m back to motel living.So how do I get by?Well. I now do survival sex work. I consent so it’s not as if I’m getting raped in the traditional sense. But I wish I had better options because it isn’t enjoyable, it just isn’t. It’s easier work on me physically and sometimes even mentally given the abuse customers scream at you working in food service. If I don’t have to spend money on a motel room and if they don’t stiff me, I might even make something that like lets me buy like a prepared salad from the grocery store.I don’t have “onlyfans” or do that because I don’t have consistent internet that works well and it costs a lot to make “content”. Most people don’t make much anyway. I’m also older and not conventionally attractive. I don’t have an amazing body. I’m just accepting this is what I need to do to get by. At least I get money out of this and more importantly? I get a roof over my head if they pay for the motel room that night.Being in a bad toxic relationship basically isolates and angers your friends. Then when I went into sex work that basically further alienated the people I had in my life. I have a couple friends left. One moved to Germany and the other to Spain- BOTH because of housing. They were lucky to find jobs and move there. I’m not a highly skilled highly sought off worker. I’m just a whore trying to get enough money for the dirty motel room. I’m a nobody with no family connections to get me a cushy job and climb the corporate ladder.I’ve accepted at this point I will never ever probably be in a loving attached relationship. I am pretty well damaged and I know it. I know it would be unfair to put any man through my bad self-esteem and my chronic pain. I know I have nothing to offer them in terms of owning a home or getting a downpayment. I’ll always be a burden.I know owning a home will never ever be in the cards for me because I won’t inherit property, I won’t have anyone to give me a loan, I won’t be in a relationship with someone who has that. But I’ve known that for awhile. I’m merely seeking to find a stable affordable rental situation. The most affordable thing I have is an old used barely working tiny car my friends who left for Germany gifted me when they left the country. It’s been my shelter some nights if I can’t afford motels.And speaking of motels…prices have increased. The one I’m in this weekend is mostly homeless families. Not a single visitor, just family upon family. Every time a new place to rent comes up in the area that’s an ‘affordable’ price, it’s met with zillions of comments and replies. It’s a full time job to find housing now in some parts of the country when your budget is what it is. It’s difficult as hell to get housing in small communities. I can’t reiterate enough how many homeless folks there are now in the interior and the problem is worsening daily. I see people suggesting to just move, but where?? I’m already in a podunk town where rent should be cheap, but yet airbnbs are going for for 3k a month like it’s Vancouver, Manhattan, or Aspen.When I was a kid, I thought when I got older I would have the chance to “right” the ship of my life. Lots of teachers and adults in my life assured me that would be the case if I just “made it through school.” I wouldn’t have to be bounced around. I could have stability. But it’s a lie. It isn’t possible without luck and support. And again, I don’t think I’m owed even a permanent home, but just a damn rental guaranteed for a couple years that’s in okay shape.Now stability to me is the relief of getting to stay in the SAME motel room for two weeks straight. Some motels used to be okay with longer term residents, but now given that there is higher demand for motel rooms and visitors are allowed to come in? Ohhhh boy they are cutting people off too. They don’t want to be a long term housing solution.While the fault still lies in my abuser, if I had accessible affordable housing I would have been able to leave him earlier and sooner. I would have probably not moved in with him so quickly in the first place either. We could have maybe gotten a bigger place to not live on top of each other which would have lessened the tensions. Maybe I wouldn’t have been beaten as badly, so I could work two fast food service jobs and afford rent. Maybe I would be smart enough and skilled enough to work from home because I’d have a home. Maybe my birth mother wouldn’t have relied on an abuser either. Maybe I could’ve finished school instead of being overloaded on trying to balance work with it in order to make rent. Maybe I wouldn’t have taken on payday loan debt. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here in complete regret, shame, and embarrassment that I do survival sex work for practically nothing and admitting openly here that I trade off letting men use me so I can sleep and shower somewhere. Maybe, maybe, maybe, and what if, what if, what if plays in my brain all night. I don’t know the way “out” of this and is there even one? I’m just trying to get through.When I talk to counsellors, they tell me I should be proud of how far I’ve come and I’m supposed to feel lucky and grateful I’m alive.But honestly and truthfully? I wonder if I’m living at all.Thank you for reading my life and please remember that housing is more than just a stepping stone in life to check off. It’s essential to human existence and without it, a whole host of social issues spring forth from it and individual human lives become deeply broken. via /r/canadahousing https://ift.tt/3vij54P