Housing Logs...A Bullshit Chore

When I was sitting at Social Services asking my questions the female worker I spoke with told me we probably didn’t need to bring a lot of our belongings with us because we probably wouldn’t be in the shelter for more than a couple of weeks. The staff at Project Redirect was going to help me find a place to live. Remember? I told you that a couple of days ago. I soon found out that wasn’t the case. According to H, one of the obligations we had to complete on a weekly basis was what they called housing logs.

Housing logs were forms that we had to fill out after making phone calls to find potential homes, and the forms were laid out in chart format. We had to write down the phone number we called; the name of the person we spoke with, if possible; check whether we’d contacted the person by phone or in person; and write down the village or hamlet where the apartment was located as well as the number of bedrooms, the asking rent, and the outcome of the conversation. It would look something like this: John /(631) 555-1234 – by phone – 2br/$1200/Babylon/Left message. Each form had enough spaces for ten calls and we had to make 30 calls a week, fill out the forms, and turn them in to the case manager by Friday, no later than the following Monday.

Let me explain the difficulties with this obligation. Not only were our children around us constantly so it was hard to make phone calls; if you have kids you know that they don’t bother you until you get on the phone. But our own kids weren’t the only problem. All of the kids in the house could be in the common room making noise as I sat in my bedroom trying to make my housing log calls. When you consider that it could be eight or more kids, sometimes all under the age of ten, that’s a lot of noise just a few feet away from me, even with my room door closed. That was just the least of the difficulties.

Before I got to the shelter, when I was making all of the phone calls to the different agencies, I found out that the State would be paying anywhere from $5000-$8000 a month to house my children in a shelter. It didn’t make sense to me why they’d pay so much to shelter us when they could just as easily help me beforehand by letting me in on one of the rent assistance programs that I only qualified for once I was in emergency housing. It would cost them thousands less but they didn’t care. So here’s the problem with the housing logs, which I found out my second day there when I spoke with the case manager. I’ll explain who the case manager is in another post, for now I’ll stay on track.

The case manager told me that I qualified for two rent assistance programs: SSP – State Supplemental Payments, or SHARP – Supplemental Housing Assistance Rental Program, or some kind of shit like that. SSP would allot me $1200 a month in rent without utilities included and HEAP – Home Energy Assistance Program would pay my utilities. SHARP would allot me $1250 a month for rent with utilities included. I was also required to have, at least, a two-bedroom apartment because the Ty and Zach would have to have a separate bedroom from Dolly and me; that was the State law. It didn’t make much sense to me considering they were forcing all four of us to live/sleep in one bedroom together in the shelter. But that was emergency housing so it was ok. Fucking stupidity!!

So I had to get a two-bedroom apartment, more bedrooms if I could get them, and I was only being given $1200-$1250 a month for a rental allowance. The State was willing to pay $5000 or more to house us in a shelter yet I was supposed to find a rental apartment for a quarter of that, or less. If you know anything about Long Island you know it’s not a cheap place to live. A studio apartment there goes for $900 or more and one, two, and three bedrooms are a helluva lot more.

After my first week of doing housing logs I found out my hurdles were as follows: IF I found an available two-bedroom apartment for $1250 or less, and they were few and far between, the owners a) didn’t want more than two people living there – because the place was too small; b) they would allow a family of four but didn’t want children under ten years of age – because young children make too much noise; or c) they didn’t accept government programs for rent payment. Occasionally I’d come across some that were for seniors only, or that the bedrooms were too small – the list of requirements on an apartment that the government mandated before they’d approve the place for me was ridiculous. It had to have a full kitchen; there had to be locks on all bedroom doors, which I personally don’t like because it’s unsafe for children; there had to be 150 square feet for me and 100 square feet for each child and each bedroom had to be 100 square feet of the total 450 I was allowed; the paint had to be fresh, and on and on the list went. But the first three hurdles were my biggest problem in finding a place.

The State didn’t care that the rental allotment they were giving us families was inappropriately low, it was insisted to us that we just had to keep looking because we’d find something eventually. When I told the case manager that the DSS lady had told me the staff would help me find a place I was told that they would, if they came across anything they’d pass it on to us residents. That NEVER happened. There was no “we” helping me, even though staff kept saying “we’ll work together to find you something”, it was all “me” helping me.

Not only was the housing logs obligation difficult in and of itself, just wait until you hear about the problem of actually being able to do them. I sometimes thought nobody wanted us to find a place to live, and I found out later I was right. But that information will come tomorrow when I’m less tired and a bit more alert. It’s a laughable dilemma, actually. Wait and see.

Until next time…peace to all.