Where Is the (Habitat for) Humanity for the Homeless?

by Indy · 2010-09-21 11:53:00 UTC
Topics:

A friend suggested that I check out Habitat for Humanity's website to see if I could qualify for a house, since I've been without one for the past six years.

My heart sank when I looked at the selection criteria for Seattle. I don't even qualify to send in an application. Number two on the list is to "the ability to pay." I stopped there because that's the part where I won't qualify. Not only would I have to prove that I can afford monthly payments, but my income must be between 25 percent and 60 percent of King County's median income. That's between $19,275 and $46,260. In addition, I must be credit worthy. I don't have any bankruptcies but I don't have credit either. That's kind of hard to develop when you live out of a car.

I realize that Habitat does help those who fit the criteria become first-time homeowners. If I had a job and could afford to put some money aside to qualify, I would. But right now, it's just another opportunity that's not available. Even when I worked two jobs, the credit thing killed my chances of qualifying for mortgages. Paying for child care that exceeded my rent didn't help me save a dime.

Could there be other programs I might qualify for? I decided to go to the "families" section of the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) website to find out. The first thing I took issue with came in the third paragraph. "Homelessness among families is typically not a long term experience." Excuse me? I guess I'm atypical, because in my experience that just hasn't seemed true.

The site fails to mention that shelters are turning away people and have waiting lists two to three months long. Nowhere did I find any mention of how many families are living out of their cars because of the shelter crises in our state. Skip on down to the next paragraph and you will read about "prevention strategies." They admit that cash assistance, housing subsidies and "other assistance" can stop homelessness before it starts. That'd be true IF housing subsidies actually existed instead of being closed to applications and being awarded like the lottery.

Seattle's great plan to end homelessness by 2014 is coming up as short as the tracks on the monorail debacle.

Photo credit: BoneDaddy.P7

Indy is a single mother of two, working on a degree and occasionally teaching herself how to repair cars. She has been homeless since 2004.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Intolerant Rhetoric Trumps News of Sky-High State Poverty Levels
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (6)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.