This is a hard diary to write for a bunch of reasons. The first one is that I had a time out for breaking the rules of the road here on Kos & I want to apologize to everyone for my ignorance and breaking the rules.
As part of that this is the last time that I will and can appeal directly to the community for financial help of any kind for this year. I’ve been asking for help with finding a place to live for me & my pooties.
Update on what has been happening:
No place yet but hopefully in the next week or so I be in one. One management company is holding a very large earnest money check. I’ve told them that if there is no approval @ one of their properties by the end of March that I will pay my bank to cancel the check. Their reaction was NOT happy. They seem like several other places to be stringing me along for whatever reasons. The Madison area rental market is tight & I’m ‘undesirable’ as a tenant. To that end I took the recommendation of a housing case worker & have written a letter to potential landlords explaining why I have not ‘good’ rental records in the last 5 years. It seems to have helped.
Last month I found out that my health insurance (Badgercare) and food assistance had been stopped because I didn’t renew back in December. I never got the notices because for some reason the paperwork was not forwarded to the address I use for mail since becoming homeless. I fixed that but in the phone conversation with the state someone determined that I must be running a business. Why? Because I admitted that in the past two years that I’ve sold some personal items on Craigslist to help pay for rent & other expenses. They also decided to send me the paperwork for a charity. Somehow thinking that any Go-Fund-Me help I've gotten must be a registered dot-org charity. I think that is straightened out but the whole business thing on CL is still holding things up. SO I’ve had to pay for all food & my scripts out of pocket. The food help is not a lot since I’m alone but every bit helps, but the lack of health insurance really hit my cash. I tried to add extra hours to my part time job that pays normal with a check & my being on payroll but the cost of my scripts made me pick & chose which ones I had to have to live. The ones I did fill were hundreds of dollars. Also without insurance I had to cancel doctor visits & therapy sessions.
When I’ve talked about my mental health on Kos both related to being homeless & to being trans I got real pushback from family. Some of my family was & is very upset that I broached the subject. Yet I found the support of the Kos community & those that I talked to IRL so helpful. It was great to finally share how worried I am about that subject & get support from a community. On that subject I’m having real struggles, not finding a place to live, worried about the safety of cats, spending $ on hotel rooms rather than an apartment, and now trying to cover food & health care has again tipped me into a strong depression. This is made worse by the food situation, as a diabetic I try to eat balanced meals @ around the same time everyday to keep my sugars from yo-yoing. Of course not having therapy for a couple of months is also hitting me. Added to all of that I had to press pause on where I’m at in my transgender journey. If not for the comfort of my cats with me I think I’d be feeling suicidal again.
We’ve been staying in a series of hotels & now I’m short on available cash. One of the downsides of the hotels is the pet fees & deposits. I’m hoping that I can stay in the same place for the next week or so until one of the apartments opens up. I’ve lost chances @ dozens of places because they rent so fast or I’ve had my last landlord give me a very bad reference. It’s pretty much she said, she said @ this point with that landlord.
I have some cash coming to me from a gig & from a job I did this month. But nothing right now to get me over the hump of having to stay in a hotel to have me cats with me. I’ve talked to Puddytat from Kos & another Kos member & if things don’t work out so I have cash they’ll help with my getting me cats to Puddytat & then caring them for a week or so. Then I could couch surf or/& stay @ really cheap hotels without paying pet fees.
I’m so frustrated, frightened, depressed that I’m not in place that I’m having panic attacks. I just freeze up & the thoughts running thru my head are all jumbled. My cats need a stable place, & I need one.
Any help or advice or support or kind words/thoughts is very appreciated!!!
I’m off to work now but will be able to check back tonight.
Paypal gets me cash within minutes, to send Cooper & me that way just log onto the website & under donate type in my email address of cjreddun@gmail.com
The Go-Fund-Me for Cooper, Audrey & me is:
Get Cooper Cat Back Home
Regards & Peace
Cooper, Audrey & CJ somewhere near Madison, WI