Thursday, December 20, 2012

Homeless, Again? (Part 2)

     I can't count the times I heard, "God comes, but in His time." What does that mean? God created man and man created the means of telling time through calendars and clocks and such, so how can He come in His own time? Is there another time that humans are not familiar with? I understand that in the Old Testament, since that is when God created time, it may have taken more than a week to create the world and the accounting is more for something so that even the feeblest of minds can comprehend, but is there an entire different dimension of time that only God follows? It just never made sense to me. Until the morning of October 4, 2012.

     I had been awoken around 9:30 with a loud knock on the door and a sheriff's deputy (who was kinda cute, by the way!) accompanied by the manager of the apartment complex and the locksmith changing the lock on the door. I was being evicted for non-payment. The day before I had received my first disability check from Social Security and got a money order for the amount of September's rent, which was past due. I tried to give it to the manager but he refused because the eviction process was too far along. After having been homeless from November 4, 2010 to April 21, 2012, I was about to be homeless again. Not even six months after getting my own place, I was going to be a nomad, moving every other month or so. And my poor cats. Cats are not like dogs; dogs crave adventure while cats crave stability and routine. In the time I was without a home, they were first being taken care of by a couple, who then split with the main caretaker moving 600 miles away. The secondary caretaker was not good at taking care of cats and it showed. So in February 2012, after staying in one place for almost a year, they were taken to another place that already had two cats. It was kind of funny though; the second place was the neighbor of the crazy house I stayed in and their two cats names were Mickey (after Mick Jagger) and MeMe (because it was all about her). My two cats were Ming (a Siamese mix) and Mowgli (the girl-cat version of the Jungle Boy). Four cats all starting with the letter M. They could have monogrammed the entire cat collection of bowls, etc and it would have worked for all of them! But back to the issue at hand. I was going to be homeless, but what was going to happen to my senior cats?

     After finding out that the apartment complex would not accept my back rent the day before, I had rented a U-Haul and bought some boxes. However, I couldn't bring myself to put the boxes together. I had done some laundry the night before but they locked the room before I could get it out. (The week before I had put $30 on my laundry card, so I wanted to use at least some of it.) I put on my robe and went to the laundry room to fetch my clothes. While there, I saw a young family and found out they had just moved in. I tried to sell them my card, but they didn't want to buy it. I warned them about paying their rent on time, as the landlord didn't mess around. They didn't even care that I was at the mercy of the federal government as I waited for a lump sum from Social Security. After folding my clothes, I went back to the apartment to start my day and somehow move as much as I could out of my apartment and back into storage. 

     After reading my Bible and saying my prayers (as I do every morning), I sat down to have breakfast. About halfway through my yogurt, the phone rang. It was Jason at my bank. He was calling to tell me a large sum of money had been deposited in my account overnight. I told him that, yes, I know that Social Security had put my first check of $1510 in the account a day ago. He told me that there were two more deposits totaling more than $10,000!  I asked him where it came from and he told me  Social Security. The lump sum had come! In God's time.

     Because I couldn't comprehend in totality all that Jason was telling me, I asked what he was doing the rest of the day because I would pay him to help me move. He suggested I ask how much it would cost to stay there. Wow. I had not even thought of that. I would end up paying all of those costs anyway plus have an eviction on my record if I left. I thanked him and hung up the phone. 

     The day before, as I was leaving the apartment to go get the U-Haul, I met a lady who gave me a bag of groceries. She didn't know me and I didn't know her, but she said that she helped at the local food bank and brought extra groceries home for her neighbors. I was flabbergasted. Here I was, a perfect stranger, and she was giving me something she had worked for. Although I had plenty of food, I knew a lot of people who didn't. I figured I would give it to them. I thanked her and told her of my pressing issue of homelessness. She said she would pray for me. Later that evening, I went to her apartment and we exchanged phone numbers. When I got off the phone with Jason the banker, my neighbor was the first person I called to thank her for her prayers. Towards the end of that call, another call came in. It was the California Highway Patrol asking if I would like to come in for an interview as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Yes, my life was full of cliches that morning. 'In God's time' and 'when it rains, it pours'. 

     My next phone call was to the apartment office where I asked if I could stay. I wasn't enamored with the place or its managing methods, but I signed a contract stating I would stay for a year and I don't like to break my word. I know it's old-fashioned, but I believe in a person's word. That is why I wanted to stay. That, and I would be able to stay in a place longer than six months. Six-thousand dollars later, I was paid up until the end of the year and in my apartment until April 30, 2013, as long as I paid the rent on time. I am waiting for a Section 8 voucher, so I would only have to pay $500 a month, but they have none available right now. But that's okay, because I am not homeless. I am where I am supposed to be, in God's time.


Footnote: I just realized, while writing this, that October 4, 2012, is exactly 20 years to the day since I was baptized. 

In His time.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Homeless, Again?

Now where were we...oh yes, that's right, self discipline. At least a blog a week. And now that I have the Internet at home, there are no excuses. Though I am certain I could think of a few.



     July 26, 2012 was the day I didn't pass probation as an Experienced Level Clerk (ELC) for the Welfare to Work Department of Contra Costa County. They don't need to tell you why you didn't pass, but I asked anyway. The main reason was that I was gone and tardy too often. If you know me, you know that I have been struggling with that last issues all of my 48 years. My mom used to say the only time I was on time was when I was born. My 7th grade English teacher wrote in my yearbook that I would "set the world on fire if I could only get there on time". What can I say? Her class was right after lunch and I like my food to settle a little bit. But more of that in another post. This was even worse. Since being T-boned by a careless driver in February, my left hand goes numb without notice. My back does the same. Imagine waking up at the normal time, but not being able to move too well because your back is numb. And dropping everything in your left hand because it decides to go numb whenever it wants. Things take a little longer. But you don't have a little longer. So the next day you wake up 15 minutes earlier and nothing happens and you could have slept that 15 minutes. Needless to say, I was late. That was if I could move. I called in sick way too many times because I could not move well enough to get ready for work, let alone drive 40 miles and work. The second reason I did not pass probation was my personality-too much of it in such a small space. I worked a full ten months after being out of work for three years. I didn't know what I was going to do.

     A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from Social Security telling me I had a hearing on my disability case coming up August 8th. I went and stated my case that I essentially lost my job due to my disabilities. I hobbled into the room and hobbled out. I received a call from Social Security about three weeks later telling me that I had been deemed disabled from the date I originally filed-October of 2010. I needed to send in some paperwork, but would be receiving a lump sum from the back payments. Meaning, that if they had not denied me the first time, I would not have spent a year and a half being homeless. I was happy and asked when I would get the back payments. The lady told me as long as I turned in the needed documents within the next ten days, I would receive it in September. What a relief! I now had a way to pay rent and not worry about being homeless - AGAIN. All I had to do was wait.

     I was able to pay August's rent with my last paycheck, but September came and the third week into the month, I had still not received the lump sum, which I figured to be about ten-thousand dollars. I could pay a few months in advance! If only I had the money. The first week of September, after I had not paid my rent, I got a three day notice to quit or pay rent. I told the manager the issue and he said there was nothing that could be done about it. Then a knock came on my door one Sunday morning and I answered it, thinking it was the lady upstairs whose grandson loved to throw things downstairs onto my patio. Instead it was a process server. See what happens when you don't go to church?  I thought I had 14 days to answer the complaint, but it was only a week. See what happens when you don't read? The last week of September, a note was nailed to the side of my door letting me know that the sheriff's office would be by on October 4th at 6am to kick me off the premises because I did not pay September's rent. During the final week of September, I left a message a day  with the contact person at Social Security and did not hear back, so I went down to the office to ask in person what was going on and how could speed things up. She told me there was nothing she could do except move my payment from the end of the month to the 3rd. I told her about the eviction and that I finally had a place to live after being homeless for a year and a half and now I was going to be homeless again. (By the way, I could not go back to the crazy house because they have me labeled a "violent drug offender who can't follow rules". I have no idea how to get that bullshit off of there.) The other thing she could -and did- do was write a letter stating that I was waiting for the money from Social Security and there was nothing more I could do until I got it. 

     I came straight from the Social Security office to the apartment office and gave the letter to the manager. He asked if I had called the lawyer's office that was handling the eviction. I told him I had just received the letter and that I would. Two days later I called the lawyer's office. They didn't care. Come October 4, 2012, I was going to be off the premises one way or another.

     As October 2nd turned into October 3rd, I checked my bank account on my phone. My first check had arrived! There was $1500 more in my account! I was so excited I couldn't sleep. When I finally got up around noon, I went to the bank and bought a money order for the amount of September's rent, with the late fee included. I raced back to the manager and handed it to him. He refused to accept it. He said I was too far along in the eviction process and that nothing could be done. I offered to clear out my bank account with just enough to keep it open if I could stay. (Just to let you know, it wasn't that I was in love with the place or anything like that. I was just tired of moving. I lived in the same apartment in downtown Suisun City for 15 years before moving into a house with my upstairs neighbor. I was there only a year and a half when she gave me notice to leave. In the next year and a half, I moved four more times. I needed stability.) But the people who own the apartment complex didn't care. In their eyes I was a lowlife deadbeat who didn't pay her bills. I asked the manager to call his boss and tell him the unique situation and ask for more time. He said he would and that he would contact me later that day with the decision. A few hours later he called back. The answer was no. If I did not leave mt apartment the next day, I would be forcibly removed. I rented a U-Haul truck and bought 10 medium size boxes. I would get what I could in my disabled state and put it into my storage unit and rent a room at a cheap motel until the money came in. And I had just put $30 on my laundry card. I had gone shopping the night before. I wonder who I could give my food to? I called the cats' last caretaker and left a voice mail for her asking if she could take them in until I could find a place. These are the things that ran through my head the night of October 3rd. I did some laundry because it needed to be done and I wanted to use the money on the card. But the security guard locked the laundry room ten minutes early so my clothes sat all night in the dryer. Just another thing I had to deal with in the morning when they locked me out of my home and I once again became homeless.

     But I couldn't bring myself to put the boxes together to start packing what I had barely just unpacked. I was frozen. I prayed, but I still felt hopeless and lost. Many people who are homeless got that way through their bad decision making. Was that me? Was I always going to be chronically homeless because the industry (radio) that chose me to employ had lost more than 50% of its jobs? Was I a bad person? If I wasn't, then what went wrong? I escaped the crazy house, on their terms, but I escaped anyway. For what? To have dreams of being self-sufficient only to find out I wasn't? And what about my girls, Mowgli and Ming? They wouldn't leave my side since I brought them home. Now they were going to be homeless again too because their mommy couldn't make the right decisions. They were going to be homeless again because their mommy was a failure. I couldn't put the boxes together because I was falling apart.

     Because my clothes were being held hostage in the laundry room, I fell asleep naked on top of my bed. Six o'clock in the morning of October 4, 2012 came and went and no knocking at the door. I finally allowed myself to sleep.

     BANG! BANG! BANG! "This is the Sheriff's Office! We are here to let Lynda McMahan know that she must vacate the premises!" It was 9:30am and my front door was wide open as a locksmith changed the locks and the manager just stood there. I yelled that I needed to put something on, could they wait a second? I tossed on an old nightgown and went to the door. The sheriff's deputy explained to me that I had until 5pm that day to get my stuff out of the apartment. If I was unable to get it all, the apartment manager would store it for me at a reasonable rate. If I failed to vacate the premises after 5pm, I would be arrested for trespassing by Suisun City Police. The locksmith has changed the lock and my door was to be left unlocked for the remainder of the day. Did I understand this? Yes, I answered. They left and I closed the door. It was really happening. I was going to be homeless again.