You know the pleas for help which create such tension here?

[daredtowork]

49. Please feel free to message me

But fair warning - like a lot of people in this position, I have a LOT of appointments, and I check DU at very random times.

I did understand you wanted to employ some people in a regular basis to build your platform. But I also thought I saw a component where you could hire people on ad hoc basis to supply them with that temporary "rent-meeting" need so they wouldn't have to make repeat visits to DU. I thought that was an excellent aspect since people could be vetted somehow.

I do think the vetting process would have to be clarified a lot. As a person who is in that position right now, I can't underscore strongly enough the urge to resist people taking over your life. A LOT of people do take over your life. My life is currently OWNED by social services, the department of rehabilitation, the employment programs I engage in, the various trades I do in order to keep my housing (this is the alternative to asking for help from DU, so this is a lot of highly scheduled work), medical appointments, bureaucratic appointments (advocates, social programs, trying to find other housing...). I also lacked transportation to get from place to place. I was drowning in this - and then I got something like a life coach just to help me manage the appointments, but the appointments with HER sucked up 8 hours a week, which cut into the trade-for-housing time, which added a lot of stress.

I'm pretty much a work slave right now, but I did things this way because I was desperate to keep my personal autonomy until I could get a full time job and get "outside" the poverty bureaucracy system. I wanted to stay where I was living instead of become homeless and/or move from shelter to shelter. I wanted to choose what I eat, when I went to sleep, and sneak little "privileges" when I could. I wanted to keep living like an adult human being as long as I could. As I said in my other post, it is exactly like an elderly adult trying to stave off the possibility their children are going to "put them in a home" (except you might be homeless).

Most of the people who get in the "ask DU" situation are ones that fall into the SSI application gap. It would be great if Wishadoo could help with that and give people a way to survive with dignity until their situation gets resolved.