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For those of you who have known us for many years, know we have been homeless for the past six years. Though housed after coming out as transgender, we found ourselves without any recourse when loosing our income, extended maternity leave, disabilities, and a theft came together to create disaster. In the state of Nevada, a family is still considered “homeless” if they are dwelling in a weekly or extended-stay, non-permanent dwelling For the past three years and five months, we have lived in one of the weekly dwellings, with one bedroom. Although they are marketed as a “flexible stay”, “apartment-style” residence, it’s basically a rough type motel that doesn’t provide cleaning services, sheets, towels, or anything like that. However, the units are furnished. We’ve not seen a city with housing options quite like this, so when arriving here after living in our camper van for just shy of three years, this suite was a welcomed reprieve from the inability to stand up in our home (our camper van was simply not tall enough). Though we’ve been able to make rent (a few times thanks to friends/chosen family) each week, if we were to miss a week, we’d only have 5 days to come up with the rental payment, other wise management puts a lock on the outside of the door handle which prevents it from being opened. People are not allowed to come back on the property, not allowed to remove their belongings, and their things are put out in the dumpsters, if this happens. The property is fenced in and there are security guards that have to be on patrol all of the time, because of the level of drama and crime that goes on in our apartment complex. There are people thrown out on a daily basis here due to the fact that as long as there are no active warrants, if a person has ID, and cash, they can get a unit here. Police units are here regularly, typically in droves. Since living here there has been 5 stabbings, 2 shootings, 3 raids, and a child abduction attempt (that’s just the ones we know about). It’s honestly quite scary as a parent. Which is why we DO NOT let our kids play here AT ALL. PERIOD. We’ve been relatively “housed” here for over three years, but the children need a bedroom that is not the living room. They deserve more stability than a weekly unit can provide. We all need more safety than this neighborhood and property can provide. Last week, while working at home, I was on Facebook and happened to see a post about a relatively new transgender-specific housing program that was being headed up by the local LGBT Center. I responded to the post and an advocate reached out to me the next day. After a phone interview, submitting our financial documents, and explaining our situation, we were approved for a two bedroom apartment! The four of us went by this week to view the place. The property manager has had the property completely remodeled with new appliances, paint, tile floors throughout, and a nice yard and garden spot. The kiddos will be able to play at our home, plus at a lovely park that’s close by! The kids asked could they go ahead and “try out the park” while we were checking out the new apartment. I laughed and responded that we could go when we signed the paperwork. There are a bunch of items we do not have for a home, like dressers, chests of drawers , night stands, a bed for Kat & I (the kids already have beds), kitchen table, chairs, sofa/couch, love seat, end tables, microwave, toaster, TV stand, mixer, can opener, towels, bath cloths, hand towels, toy bins, child clothes hangers, coffee table. What we do have is each other, love, a week’s worth of groceries, and a new place soon <3. As we pass from a semi-stable position to one that will provide even more stability, this feels like a type of transition. A transition for the entire family, definitely an upgrade! We feel this is a huge step for us, a leap in progress as we push forward! We are so incredibly grateful for this opportunity to make improvements to our situation, especially when it involves a larger space, more privacy, and greater stability for our children. I can remember when we first became homeless, we thought we would be back on our feet, housed, and stable within six months. Oh how we were wrong. Thinking back to those nervous, hot, and uncomfortable last few days at our townhouse in Mississippi, Josh was still an infant, only 5 months and Jay was three. We gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in our small, dodge neon and left Mississippi, headed for Denver. I recall attempting to be housed at family shelters, each one wanted to divide us up, either one parent with the children and the other separated, or the children in one building which was subdivided by gender, and parents in a different building, also divided by gender. Or worse, the time Kat was asked to reveal their genitals in order to receive a cot for the night. The kids both remember living in our vehicle, but recall it less and less as time goes by. Thankfully so, as there were quite a few terrifying moments. Having two young children living in a car, in 8 feet of snow, in negative 17 degree temperatures, is not an easy feat. It’s no picnic to not know where the next tank of gas is going to come from, when you need to keep your family warm and the car cranked in order to do so. Having to dredge through miles of snow, dealing with wind-burn, and edging on frostbite to go out and obtain the money, services, and work we needed to continue to survive. I would work every night to fill out 75-100 hand written business cards on index cards, explaining that we would work doing housekeeping, at home healthcare, yard work, and moving assistance, if someone would just hire us. I spent hours during the week at the public libraries, using the computers to post Craigslist ads in order to advertise our services as well. Many times handing out the cards in person, at places such as: malls, sidewalks, parking lots, and grocery stores we’d get cash donations or people would bring us in to take us shopping for the goods we needed to survive that day. The compassion and empathy shown to us by those who offered us kindness, was a friendly and welcomed tender moment, which helped to ease the emotional soreness left by those who had been awful to us along the way. When we look back over those moments, we cherish those few bright stars, we will NEVER forget you. Those interactions, those moments, those people are the fuel that keeps us going. You few believing in our family, seeing something in us worth interacting, worth helping, worth taking a moment to talk to us, hear our story, wish us luck, give us a spare dollar. It’s heard, it’s seen, it’s felt, it’s appreciated, and it’s not been given in vain, we’ve made the most of what we’ve been blessed with and do not take it for granted. We would NOT have gotten this far on our journey without those that like us, feel it on their hearts to reach out to others in the ways they are able. We may not have money to give, but we do have time, and devote our outreach in honor of those who’ve reached out to assist us! There were bleak times, but I’d have to say the most disappointing, saddest, and toughest part of being homeless was the fact that no matter which town or city we were in attempting to start over, eventually, it’s inevitable that the police start to harass you if you’re a person that lives on the street. Which would limit our ability to get stabilized somewhere. Mainly because housing programs are either lottery based, or have wait lists that are years long, or want some sort of documented proof of one’s gender identity, birth sex, as well as current genitalia. While waiting, working our butts off, trying to survive in the mean-time, the police would make our lives a living hell. They would wake us from sleeping in the middle of the night, sweep us out of camp grounds so we could not be in a safe area, or plain out tell us to leave town and would follow us as we drove out to ensure we did leave. So having the chance to start over somewhere was really proving to be very difficult, and at times seemed impossible. Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Highlands Ranch, Thornton, Commerce City, Aurora, Elizabeth, Colorado; Seattle, Tacoma, Sea-Tac, Olympia, Lacy, Tumwater, Vancouver, Washington; Portland, Beaverton, Tigard, Wilsonville, Troutdale, Hillsdale, Medford, Ashland, Oregon; San Francisco, Sacramento, Lodi, Stockton, San Jose, Pacifica, San Leandro, Daly City, Salinas, Tracy, California. All of those places were a very similar experience, the worst being Elizabeth, Colorado. But, we were told to leave, or ran out of town, or harassed by the police in every one of these cities, making it where I would have been arrested if I stayed in the city, and eventually we would have to leave the entire state or we’d lose the camper van we’d bought while homeless, and I’d have been in jail. So, we’d have to flee to stay together, and stay safe. It felt like a loop, an endless cycle from which we couldn’t seem to break away. People treating us badly, that was the absolute wort part of being homeless. Being turned away from services was a close second especially over things like: age, gender identity, or the fact we’re a family that work best together and not separate – felt discouraging and completely wrong for them to be like this to us over a place to sleep for a few hours. Especially a family with small children. We encountered numerous heartless interactions and harmful situations, too many to count. Unless you’ve been through it, you’ll never truly understand how humiliating, unnerving, traumatic, and horrific it is to be homeless. We’ve been spit on, cussed out, told nasty things, threatened, and harassed for being homeless, and it’s even worse if these type of people know we’re transgender. We sheltered our kids from their horribleness as much as we could, thankfully they have been incredibly resilient, and learned to adapt to a vast amount of changes and range of circumstances. But they deserved better, so we kept pressing forward. Searching for a place we could start over. Las Vegas turned out to be that place. Within two days of moving here we were able to get this place, and have been working toward improving our situation as much as we possibly can. Although we’ve had several set backs, one being our camper van being taken away by the city after we moved in, we paid to get that back, only to have it taken the next year. Then the following year Kat’s check was late, which caused a humongous domino effect in our finances. Our auto drafts came out regardless of their being no money in our account, then they of course caused overdraft fees, which then, we had to pay our rent, so we had to go in the hole even further, which then locked our first bank account we had had in years. Then crashed the 647 point credit score we had built up for ourselves down to 300. After that, our bank account closed, we had to max out our credit card to pay our bills and buy groceries. Once we got the check, everything was completely messed up, and we owed so much money in overdraft fees that we couldn’t do anything except try to recover somehow. We were planning to move into a place of our own, and out of this weekly unit, but with zero credit, and now majorly in the hole, we had to use the taxes we intended for a home, to carve our way out of that misery the next spring. Funny how one person’s lack of action can cause an entire family’s life to stall, and feel like it got punted straight into the shitter! It felt extremely awful, especially since the organization responsible didn’t even attempt to help to repair the damage of their employee’s error. But, I digress. We’ve recovered, though we used to be able to use our credit card and bounce a few debits there between paychecks, now we have to borrow from friends and pay it back on payday (thank y’all!), but it’s always worked out! We Are FINALLY Getting A Home! Yet again, the Universe has provided a way for us to be safe, stay together, and progress as a family! We are so excited and can hardly contain ourselves!! Our family is extremely grateful for this opportunity. We’ve worked so hard to climb out of homelessness, and we are FINALLY making it to be categorized as a family that has a “home”. If we could say anything to the Board of Directors of the housing program, it's THANK YOU. Thank you for allowing a program with no age constrictions. Thank you for allowing a program which accepts families. Thank you for allowing for this housing program to be created for transgender people, and we thank you for giving our family this wonderful chance of a home. Your program is giving new vigor to three transgender people and an adorable little cisgender ally! So, as we embark on this new journey, this new phase, this new transition as a family, we are asking that you help us to make this a successful and easy transition for us, as we are doing all we can but still need a BOOST! If you can contribute, please do! If not, please share, share, share & encourage others to give! See below for a list of items needed & ways to give the Blake Family A Boost: Electrical Deposit = $350 Internet Set-up: $75 Kitchen Table = $200 Chairs = $150 Desk = $150 Bed Side Tables = $300 Sofa = $250 Love Seat = $125 Bookshelf = $75 Microwave = $65 Toaster = $25 Total: $1765 Donate Financially: Venmo PayPal CashApp Donate Items: Amazon Family List |
Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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