I'M FINALLY BACK :)

Hello everyone, I’m back. I didn’t think this would happen for a while but here I am. Did you miss me? I’ve missed being here and it feels really good to be here again. See, I haven’t had access to a computer for the past few months, since June 1st to be exact. Why? Because my kids and I were forced to move into a homeless shelter that day and one of the rules is “no TVs and no desktop computers allowed in the rooms.” I guess they’re considered too big and are a theft risk. However, laptops, portable DVD players and things like that are permitted. That’s probably because they can be hidden or taken with me when I leave the premises for the day. Still, I didn’t even have a laptop to utilize until this past Wednesday, yesterday. A friend of mine bought herself a new laptop and presented me with her still-young one as an early Christmas present. YAY ME!! Now I can get back to my blog.

I’m still in the shelter, though, and it sucks. Why are we here? Because when Kara decided she needed to sell her house my kids and I were literally stuck for someplace to live. I won’t go into a lot of details about the problems and the system now; I’ll leave that for future posts. Suffice it to say that being in a homeless shelter isn’t great, but it’s also not as bad as most people think it is. We’re not in a gymnasium-type of room with rows and rows of beds where families live right on top of each other and hoard their belongings under their cots. The shelter we’re in is a big house in a residential neighborhood. The first day we arrived I wasn’t sure we were at the correct address. We were.

It’s a split ranch with six large bedrooms, two living rooms, two bathrooms, one kitchen, and the staff office. One family to a bedroom and the living rooms, bathrooms, and kitchen are shared by all. My kids and I are in a bedroom with a set of bunk beds, a trundle bed, two dressers and a closet. We’ve got very few belongings with us because Social Services told us, back in June, not to bring a lot with us because we wouldn’t be here for very long. Guess again. The rest of our belongings are in storage that DSS pays for and I’m prevented from accessing it while we’re in here so we’ve had to replenish many of the items we didn’t have with us, including winter clothing. More on that later.

The first day we arrived I had to fill out paperwork and was given a list of rules that had/have to be followed while we live here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that we have a roof over our heads, but I’m 44 and haven’t had to follow house rules in a long time. It sucks. All the kids have to be “off the floor” (in their respective rooms), by 9:00 every night, and all the adults have to be off the floor by midnight; 1:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. We’re given one hour for dinner per family, and that hour includes cooking, eating, and clean-up time. One hour isn’t that long, try it and you’ll understand. The two TVs in the house – one in each common room (living room) – have to be shared by everyone in the house, and are supposed to be tuned to news or kid-friendly programming while the kids are on the floor. No soap operas, no talk shows, no music videos, no court TV programs, etc. After 9:00 the adults generally watch whatever we choose.

Our rooms have to be kept clean and the adults have chores to do twice a day. It’s a rotating schedule and changes weekly. For instance, my chore this week is sweeping and mopping the lower common room – once in the morning and once after the kids are in bed for the night. The upper common room, two bathrooms, the front entryway and the kitchen are the other five chores. We have to do housing logs every week which means we have to make 30 phone calls to try to find housing, log them on the required forms and turn them in to staff at the end of the week. More about that later, too.

There is a staff member on site at all times; three shifts: 8:00am-4:00pm, 4:00pm-12:00am, and 12:00am-8:00am. So we get a different staff member on each shift, during each day. Some of the staff is here numerous days a week; others are here one shift in the entire week. We get to know them and some of them are cool while others are complete pricks. Whatever. There is also a security check twice a day. An off-duty police officer stops by, does a walk-through of the house, and signs his appropriate log. And we’ve got cameras in the common rooms, the kitchen and the staff office for 24-hour surveillance. So the house is pretty safe. The neighborhood, on the other hand, is a different story altogether. I’ll get back to that, too.

In any case, the kids and I have been here since June 1st and I’m doing everything I can to get us out; it’s just not going very quickly. There have been ups and downs, problems with the system, problems with the Department of Social Services, problems with the Department of Labor, and more issues, troubles, problems, hang-ups, tie-ups, and bumps in the road than I care to remember. However, over time, I’ll make sure every ugly detail is here for all to read. Please be patient with me on that, it does have to be told, though. For now, I’m just glad I’m back here, getting to bug whoever decides to read me today, tomorrow, or whenever. Now that I have a laptop, I’ll be able to write whenever I want, and I couldn’t be happier.

Until next time…peace to all.