Housing

Have you noticed that my last few posts haven't been excessively depressing and some have even been upbeat and positive? That's not to say I'm not incredibly overwhelmed and stressed and anxious. I'm just working on acknowledging the positive things in my life.

This morning I had an appointment with Section 8 housing. I have this appointment at least once a year to renew my housing services.

Right now I also have Social Security and food stamps reviewing my cases. Each of these things is incredibly stressful for me. I always worry that something is going to go wrong and I'm going to lose the service.

Food stamps is probably the least of the three worries, because it doesn't pose an imminent threat to my survival. If I have to spend my extra pennies on food and I'm still getting extra pennies, then I'm grateful I'm still getting extra pennies. I won't complain about that.

If I lose my Social Security, however, that's a different story. That would make me have no pennies at all, let alone extra pennies. But if I still had Section 8 and food stamps, at least I would have a roof over my head and food to eat.

Section 8 is the one that I absolutely couldn't bear to lose. If I lost Section 8, I would have nowhere to go. Even the cheapest and most run-down places here won't accept me because my income is too low.

So today was my annual renewal. Every year they assign a different case manager to me. I've had this new case manager before, but I never actually met her. She's a very nice person! We got along great. She was so pleased with my ambitious attitude as far as schooling goes. It's always a good sign when you hit it off with the case manager. It means I made a good first impression and she'll be more willing to work with me because she knows I'm willing to work for myself.

She's going to help me get on the waiting list for a program called the Family Self-Sufficiency program. She didn't explain in depth what the program entails, but she did tell me that it's a program that helps people attain home ownership. Now, let me tell you, I don't want a house. It's just far more work than I want to put into something. So I thought, "I don't know..." But I decided it couldn't hurt to put my name on the waiting list. Then on the way home I thought about how I would be okay owning a condo, so maybe I can do that.

With this program, they will start adding funds into an escrow account when I start working. With the Section 8 program, rent increases based on your income. So what would happen on this program is they would add funds based on my rent increases. I know, that sounds confusing. Here's how it works: if I started out paying $100 for rent and it increased to $150, I would still pay $150, but the program would also add that extra $50 every month to an escrow account. As my rent goes up, the amount deposited goes up. Also, they will do a three-for-one match on my savings for a down payment up to $5,000. That means I could potentially get an extra $15,000 for a down payment! They'll also help me work on my credit and hopefully help me get my collections bill settled somehow.

I'm excited to be a part of this program. And also very nervous. I mean, this whole self-sufficiency thing is all new to me. I'm terrified that I'm going to fail. I know, that's the wrong attitude to have. But it's not an unrealistic attitude.

I might as well try it, right? I mean I could potentially own my own condo someday!