UK example.
I escaped a violent relationship.
Slept in my car slowly moving away from the city I was living in to one 300 miles away. The plan was to move even further away but that didn’t happen when my car was set on fire.
So I was homeless, in a city that is know for division and political strife, with nothing bar the clothes on my back.
A drop in centre helped me acquire the documents that were destroyed (birth cert/passport etc), I visited daily for food and to shower whilst looking for a job.
Made a benefits claim for £60 a week, however it was on hold until I had a physical address and could show ID, but backdated once I had found a spot in a hostel. That took 3 months. However the back dated benefit was immediately gobbled up to pay the service charge (£42 a week) whilst the application for housing benefit went through, that was another 7 weeks, but was also backdated, this then reduced the amount i was asked to pay (£21).
It was made clear if I worked whilst I resided in the hostel I would be responsible to pay the whole cost – that would be £126 a week, plus service charge £42. For a room shared with 2 other guys that was barely big enough for us.
That would mean I would need to earn a minimum of £168 a week. The UK minimum wage at that point in time was £6.19.
£6.19 × 40 hours = £247 before tax. After tax, and hostel charges, that left £50 left over to purchase everything I needed, plus save to pay deposit/furnish a flat in the future….
So I waited until I was offered Social Housing -that was 9 months. Not working meant I was eligible to claim a Housing Grant (now not offered) and was given £600 to furnished the flat I was offered. I bought kitchen appliances (an oven, washing machine, fridge freezer,plus pots, pans kettle etc),a charity gave me a bed, a food parcel and and a card to help with the initial gas and electric prepay (that was £25 for each).
A month after moving in, I took the first job I was offered. The pay was £6.30 an hour.
It still took me over a year to furnish the flat to a basic degree of comfort, buying things second hand etc.
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Even working low level, low income jobs still often isn’t enough to get someone off the streets or stop them becoming homeless. Someone is often only 3 mistakes or events from being made homeless.
It’s a process, a journey, and one that can take a while to work through especially with the current cost of living crisis making things worse. For me to work through the time I left my abusive partner to when I got the key to my own front door and furnish it, however basic, was over 2 years.
Now 13 years later, I’m no longer in that flat.
I have a home no-one can take from me, when I bought a semi derelict property from money I saved, living like I still only had £50 a week.
Many of them actually do work at low-wage, entry-level jobs.
But that may still not be enough to get them out of homelessness — believe it or not.
Homelessness is an unbelievably-steep, deep hole to climb out of. First, there’s the matter of getting the job when you have no fixed address, no laundry or bathing facilities, no reliable transportation, no safe, reliable place to charge your phone — and maybe no cellphone service at all. Plus, homelessness is unsafe and the street and homeless encampments are noisy and often do not permit of good sleep…
Add to it that getting the cheapest apartment close to your employment often requires first-month’s and last-month’s rent — or more — plus sizeable deposits and references.
Plus: there is no place in the U.S. where a minimum-wage job will afford you a one-bedroom apartment or most places, even a studio, and enable you to also buy food, cell-phone service, transportation, and utilities.
And public transportation is unreliable. I’ve missed buses because the driver blew past my stop to be on time to meet his relief driver. Miss your bus a couple of times and you’ll be fired from your low-wage, entry-level job. And if you become ill with a bad cold or flu and need to stay home both for yourself and to protect your co-workers and customers from your microbes, those jobs sometimes do not offer sick days and you either work sick, or again, your job is in jeopardy.
Shall I go on?
