Even with everyone's extremely gracious donations,I am still homeless...
Let me give everyone backstory. It is alot of personal info, but I don't care at this point. I'm 26, and mentally ill. Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Depression, General Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Body Dysmorphic Disorder... I have been struggling with this for years, over a decade. I have applied for SSI Disability twice but have been rejected. My work history is terrible; what few jobs I can handle without having panic attacks are not interested in hiring someone who has only been working for maybe 9 months total in their lifetime. I can't find work anywhere, and temp work is too difficult and harsh (anyone who has done is knows how punishing it is).
I'm homeless with my boyfriend Caleb, and he is currently trying to survive a cold storage temp job for 9 dollars an hour, and he can't keep waking up at 6 AM after sleeping in the street for this. His feet are developing fungus because we have to sleep with our boots on. Two nights ago we had to brush broken glass to the side so we could sleep near a dumpster behind a closed Little Ceasar's. We had a porch we could sleep on that was part of a condemned home (from a fire). It isn't being used; it can't be used. But someone called the cops and forced us to move.
As your donations have shown, we are not broke. Instead, we have been denied by everyone we speak to about housing. We are in Philadelphia... Every place we speak to for single rooms (costing 125-200 a week, x3 to move in) says no. Usually they don't accept couples. But lately they have been saying no because I am unemployed.
A woman on the phone said. "You're unemployed? What happens if your boyfriend loses his job?" Even though that makes no sense. Last I checked, a single person didn't need to have redundant incomes just to sleep inside. If you can, and have to, take that risk with literally every single occupancy room, why does it disqualify us?
There is one singular homeless shelter in the city, yes I am being literal, we have checked, that would accept both myself and my boyfriend. Everywhere else only accepts one gender, or couples with children. And that shelter is in a back alley, guarded with cameras and barbed wire. We can't be in line before 6 PM, so the homeless have to wait around down the street where people live. Then at 6, they line up, and the shelter opens at 7 PM so everyone must stand there for the hour even in the rain lest they lose their spot in the shelter (which can only hold so many). Then they scan you for metal,go through all of your bags and remove anything they deem dangerous,and let you go into one big room to sleep on plastic mats from a school's gym class. You can leave at 6AM. They treat you like a convicted prisoner. We cannot do that; Caleb would not be able to make it to his job, and he would be coming home with an hour or two at most before we have to be in line again.
Hospitals won't help us because we don't have insurance. Every government resource we go to for the homeless says they can't help us; we then get a paper of "resources" which is a bunch of numbers to other government groups or other place. Every single resource is always wrong. We always call every number. They all say that our list was wrong, they don't do that, or don't anymore, or they just don't answer, or they are closed permanently. Or, we get another location to go to, where we are turned down because of bad information, and given another list of numbers that are all wrong. This has happened around 5 times. Each time costing us money for public transportation and entire days of our precious time.
Almost every night I have panic attacks and sobbing fits. Most nights I end up suicidal, only alive because Caleb will physically stop me from trying to kill myself. I have made so many plans... I have personally experienced many of the worst parts of society as it lets me die slowly and painfully. I have been let down by every group claiming it helps; hospitals, mental health facilities, the government, non-profit groups... Every realtor is unwilling to listen or compromise. Society has made it clear to me...
I don't deserve to live. Even my boyfriend is being punished for trying to take care of me, because he is homeless still because of the multiple times that my inability to work has cost us a place. My family won't help;they are why I am homeless. What few friends I have in the area can't provide us a place to sleep. I am not homeless because of lack of money, or having commited crimes, or even wronged anyone. I am homeless because every chance they get, people have decided I don't deserve so much as a place to sleep.
If you don't hear from me again... Now you know why. I'm so sorry... You guys are the only community I have, and its clear many of you are nice, empathic people, who genuinely hate that this kind of thing happens. I wish I could keep giving back to this community... But my chances are less and less every day of surviving to see the next, whether I die from someone else or having my mental disorders get the best of me. I take some solace is knowing that many of you understand... I won't pretend a game like Shadowrun doesn't appeal to a certain type of person. The kind of people who know our society is broken and corrupted. The kind of people who wish they could just go out and make an impact, any impact, just to show that the way things are isn't okay.
If I don't make it... I hope the errata team's next coordinator does better than I did. Thank you all for everything.