Okay. What you may ask is semi homeless? For starters, I am not on the streets, I am doing everything possible to avoid that. So what I do is I post ads on Craigslist looking for free places to live where someone is willing to give me a room in exchange for something they need. For instance, it could be cleaning, cooking, help with their business, child care, elder care, animal care, ... sometimes all of the above.
I do this because I really do not want to be on the streets, it's not a great place for a 60 year old woman and because I have cats. I took my cats with me on this crazy journey because they are all I have. I have lost my friends (who stopped answering my phone calls because they probably were afraid I would want to move in with them) and my family (I lost them because I was supposed to give a kidney to my wealthy brother-in-law and when I was being evicted I asked my patient advocate at the hospital if they have any assistance for homeless kidney donors, found out they don't let homeless people donate kidneys and they took me off the list, causing my family to stop speaking to me because I put "money" before "love".)
Now, the shelter system says they would take me in but I have to put my cats in a shelter first. Nope. Not doing it. They are the only semblance of love and sanity I have left. So I search for rooms-in-exchange-for-work on Craigslist.
It's been four years now and well, I could write a book about the long, strange journey it has been. People are crazy. Yep, it seems to be my experience that people who take people in (that they found on Craigslist) seem to be kinda crazy. Ranging from slightly to bat shit.
I don't mean to generalize, but after 20 (is it 20?) moves, I seem to be an expert.
Sometimes I only stay somewhere for a day or two because I have to get out quick and I have to post a "help! this guy wants to kill me, I need somewhere to live" ad on Craigslist. Yeah. That's happened more than a few times. Sometimes I know they overwork me (14 hours a day, 7 days a week) but at least they don't want to kill me, so I stay for a year or more until I burn out from the unfairness of how much work I have to do to earn a room. And then wind up in another crazy situation again.
Sometimes I get sexually harassed, by men and women. Geez! You should see the emails I get when I post ads on Craigslist, almost every one is a man (or woman, or couple) asking for sex. Or blow jobs, lap dances, naked cleaning, ... one guy wanted me to fart in his face, daily. In addition to cooking and cleaning. I do not take any of these "offers"; I'm homeless, not morals-less, as I like to say.
Sure, some might say, get a job. Not easy in some of the areas I have lived in, not much work. Plus, I do not have a car and public transportation only goes so far. And when you work for people to earn your room, they don't want you to work because they need you working for them all day and at night. Or some have told me I would have to give them my paycheck on top of earning my room by working for them. People think they "own" me. Some have called me their slave. One wanted to chain me. Seriously, indentured servitude is truly in existence in this day and age.
Now, do not get me wrong. I am grateful for every one of them who took me in. Seriously. It kept me off the streets for that moment in time. That was a kindness. Where I am at now, I am safe, I am living with a woman but she does not let me shower or wash my clothes, or cook my food, or use her refrigerator. I just sit in my room (washed by a washcloth) surfing the internet (thank God I can use her wi-fi) and eating food that does not have to be refrigerated (jerky and tuna pouches and fruit) while I search for the next place to go to and I sort through the explicitly sexual emails I get.
Now before you assume there are tons of charities, agencies, churches , ... just doling out money, you are wrong. For four years I have tried and it's just not there. God! How I have tried! At least I am lucky enough to get food stamps and Medicaid. And I make and sell jewelry online to pay for cat food and kitty litter. Hey, I even tried "crowdfunding", no luck.
At least none of this depresses me. I am very spiritual. I know there is a higher being and I do meditation to retain my inner peace. But seriously, I want a better life. And a shower. And okay, a roof of my own over my head for me and my cats. So I keep hoping that each day is a new day and that everything can change in a moment. Because it can and it does.
Now if you find any of this hard to believe, just go to Craigslist and look under "room wanted". You will see there is an entire sub-culture of people just like me out there, in desperate situations looking for a room.
I am their voice. Hear us. Help us.