Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble
It makes no sense to me to count housing benefits by number of rooms anyway. Housing vouchers here are flat dollar figures, and it's up to the tenant to figure out how much house they can afford and in what neighborhood.
Still, I can't get over how often you and Sundae refer to housing benefits and estates. It just seems so much rarer here overall. But maybe I get a false impression simply because it's a hot topic... roughly what percentage of the UK population would you say is on some level of government housing?
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I think the Housing Authorities in the US go by Federal mandate. At any rate, in Colorado the local Housing Authority sets what's called a "fair" market value on the amount you are allowed to rent an apartment for.
What a joke! In Cortez, the HA sets the highest rent a single person can pay at $500.00/month. This sum must cover utilities, as well. If I am very frugal and never set the thermostat over 55 - 60 degrees in the winter, I can slither by paying $70.00/month for gas and electric. This leaves me with $430.00 to find a rental with. The only places around here that rent for that little are trailers in parks with meth labs.
I lucked out on my current apartment because when I moved in 3 years ago, the fair market was $530.00/month. It's gone down now thanks to the fact that there is a 1000% unemployment here and no one can afford to pay for ANYTHING. They're letting me stay here for the time being, anyhow.
Also, a single person cannot rent an apartment or house with more than one bedroom. In fact, I am not even allowed to share housing expenses with anyone who is not a family member. Thus, a person with a rental voucher can't double up with someone else to help save on expenses. What a stupid rule!
What's even worse is what the fair market is 50 miles away in La Plata County in Durango where a person might have a chance of finding employment. If you're really lucky, you might find a one bedroom in Durango for $1,000/month. The Housing Authority claims that a single person can rent for $750.00/month - including utilities - in La Plata County. Ha, Ha, Ha! Yeah, a storage shed for that amount, maybe - but not a place where you're not even allowed to have a roommate to split the rent with. Another stupid rule because if the Housing Authority would just up the fair market by even $200, people from poverty stricken Montezuma and Dolores Counties could move to Durango where the jobs are.
All I need to tear my housing voucher in half is an additional $500 - $600/month - a sum that I could make even part time at minimum wage. But I can't do that in Cortez and I can't afford the move to a new town, so I am almost like a prisoner to the local housing authority.
If I had 64K/year, I'd feel like I'd died and gone to heaven. As it is, my income places me at 130% BELOW the poverty level and legal aid does not exist in Montezuma County. If I need legal advise, I'd have to go shoplift something and make sure I got caught because then I would at least be given a public defender.
As much as some people would like to believe otherwise, folks do not just go live on a low income and wallow around all day on their extravagent gov't benefits because it's such a wonderful way of life. I would love to be able to have a job again that just paid a living wage. I'd go and throw those stupid benefits in the social worker's face and dance a little jig on my way out of the building.
My own grandparents were born into poverty in the Kentucky Mountains. You either went to work in the coal mines and died an early death or you starved. Anyone who could manage to get out did. My Grandmother was lucky in that her parents had a bit more money than most of the folks in Harlan County. My great grandparents loaned my grandparents just enough money to buy a farm down in the bluegrass country near Lexington. Despite the fact that the great depression was going on, my grandparents not only managed to repay the loan, they also set aside the money to put everyone of their 6 children through the University of Kentucky.
My grandmother and grandfather who had never even graduated from high school had an eldest son with a PhD in chemistry, the second oldest (my Dad) went to medical school, the youngest brother got a doctrate and became head of the Department of Education at the University of Boston. The oldest girl got her RN and the two younger girls became teachers.
All of my family worked from sun up to sun down, making every single acre productive on that farm they owned. They had pigs and chickens, as well as milk cows. My Grandmother had a butter and egg route that she ran every week for her regular customers in the nearest town. All their vegetables and produce they grew and canned themselves. Tobacco was their cash crop, and if you've never spent a hot Kentucky day stripping tobacco leaves, you don't know what hard work is.
It pisses me off no end when people tell their family stories in order to prove how THEY know how to work and THEY know how to get by on one slice of bread a day and THEY just sucked it up and NEVER complained because THEY were all just the fucking salt of the earth.
And if someone else needs some help for whatever reason, then they are merely worthless scum who should get their Medicaid taken away and go off and die quietly somewhere and leave the superior members of our society alone.
Now if you all will excuse me, I need to go forge some paperwork for my appointment to become a welfare queen tomorrow. Plus, I need to practice my fake limp, so I can get all that oxycontan for free from my quack doctor who I also see for free.
Or I could just get so angry and so discouraged and so just sick and tired of my pathetic existance that I'll go throw myself off a cliff into the fucking Colorado River. It beats having to camp next to it come winter when the fair market value for my rental goes down to $1.50/month.
And I'm ever so sorry that my family was so clueless that they became tobacco farmers instead of immigrating to Canada. I'm sure my cousins will be delighted to hear what no accounts we Kentuckians are.