I really don't want to die here.

[LongTimeLurker]

@PatriotGrrrl

If you are definitely resigned to being homeless, San Francisco is THE place to be. Rents are so high that there’s no way you’d be able to rent a room on any kind of low income, but there’s tent cities all over the place and lots of services for the homeless, plus lots of tourists and wealthy professionals you might be able to sell stuff to or otherwise get money from, and weather that’s tolerable all year long (it does get chilly at times, but not freezing).

Thank you PatriotGrrrl, that is very helpful. It does seem like a very viable option.

[LongTimeLurker]

@JackieLikesVariety

that is surprising and counter-intuitive…but good info.

I think getting out of homeless is so hard (not that I’ve had any experience but just reading) that you should try to get someplace ASAP. have you looked for cheap housing on Craigslist? look in rooms shared. don’t sell you car.

at some point, being homeless with some planning is better than without - but it’s still so last ditch I think you should not have it be your plan. there are cheap places, just not great ones.

honestly, I met a guy who lived in a storage place. he rents three of them because he has one just for books but he is a real exception, I think. it’s a lifestyle he has chosen and enjoys.

who have you talked to locally about options? some kind of social services?

I haven’t looked on Craigslist for cheap housing, I will get on that. Where I live now I pay 655 a month, but that covers all utilities and cable. I have been spending 50 a month on DSL.

I need to follow-up on social services though.

[LongTimeLurker]

@TruCelt

If you are able to drive and clean house you may be able to find a live-in work arrangement with some of the local elderly folks. Look in Craig’s List under “Elder Care.” Some will require lifting, but many just need someone who can make a meal and do the laundry without burning the house down, and drive them to appointments.

I don’t know what the Uber/Lyft status in your area is, but if you can clean the back seat of your car, and get your license/insurance in order, they are really helpful in getting you started.

If you like dogs there is also “Wag!” which is like Uber for dog walking. You give your info and they certify you, and then folks can contact you through the app when they need a walker. There is some GPS addition so they can actually see where their dog is taken.

Help to find medical care: http://ohiofreeclinics.org/who-we-are/locations/find-a-clinic.html

I hope some of this is helpful! Please don’t give up. Above all get to a medical clinic and tell the nurse/doctor exactly how you are feeling. Print this out for them if you can, or write it all down and hand it to them so they can’t interrupt you.

Once you are feeling healthy again, all these other problems will look more manageable.

Thank you TruCelt for the jobs advice, and especially for the link. I will look through it for some needed help.

[LongTimeLurker]

@Mean_Mr.Mustard

The burning eye thing, while seeming trivial compared to your other problems, is no joke (not that anyone is treating it as one).

It happens to me too, so bad at times that I have to pull over while driving until it passes.

I know money is tight, but bypass the Visine and other cheaper offerings on the shelf; spring for Artificial Tears. This is my opthomologist’s recommendation.

Best of luck to you.
mmm

I don’t think I have tried Artificial Tears yet. It is on my shopping list now.

[LongTimeLurker]

Thank you all for your input. I have some directions to follow now!

[anomalous1]

Ohio definitely will have some sort of food and housing assistance programs, as well as libraries and community colleges for you to use internet if things get dire, and shelters that you can use (and an address to receive your mail for important documents) or set up a P.O. Box. If it came down to it, you could definitely use your Mazda Tribute as a means to sleep/stay out of the elements, just while you are looking for assistance. I doubt it should get that far, you seem like an intelligent person and resourceful enough to find 655 all inclusive rent! We should be so lucky elsewhere lol. I’m sure you will be okay, DON’T GIVE UP HOPE. In this meantime, I did a little research to at least make it a bit easier on you, given the stress of your situation, follow this link;

Office of Family Stability | Office of Family Assistance | Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
(Job and Family services)

It has all of the forms and information you need to be assigned a caseworker that will find you food, housing, employment, medical and other assistance. From reading a little bit it seems as though there is a job training program too. You can drop the form off at any JFS facility. Here’s info for one located in Columbus;

Northland Opportunity Center - Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services

but there are also many others in and around your area.

Best of luck! I’m sure you will do just fine!

[GreenWyvern]

More job advice:

If you have any skills you can use on a computer, even text editing, copy writing, data entry, etc. there are plenty of one-off jobs available.

Try Freelancer.com

It’s a reputable site, with thousands of projects listed. You can bid on jobs, and they have a good escrow system to ensure that you get paid.

Look at their categories for

[ul]
[li]Writing and Content[/li][li]Data Entry & Admin[/li][li]… any other skills you have.[/li][/ul]
Browse through the projects and see if anything looks suitable.

[LongTimeLurker]

@anomalous1

Ohio definitely will have some sort of food and housing assistance programs, as well as libraries and community colleges for you to use internet if things get dire, and shelters that you can use (and an address to receive your mail for important documents) or set up a P.O. Box. If it came down to it, you could definitely use your Mazda Tribute as a means to sleep/stay out of the elements, just while you are looking for assistance. I doubt it should get that far, you seem like an intelligent person and resourceful enough to find 655 all inclusive rent! We should be so lucky elsewhere lol. I’m sure you will be okay, DON’T GIVE UP HOPE. In this meantime, I did a little research to at least make it a bit easier on you, given the stress of your situation, follow this link;

Office of Family Stability | Office of Family Assistance | Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
(Job and Family services)

It has all of the forms and information you need to be assigned a caseworker that will find you food, housing, employment, medical and other assistance. From reading a little bit it seems as though there is a job training program too. You can drop the form off at any JFS facility. Here’s info for one located in Columbus;

Northland Opportunity Center - Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services

but there are also many others in and around your area.

Best of luck! I’m sure you will do just fine!

Thank you for the links anomalous1, they look very helpful.

[LongTimeLurker]

@GreenWyvern

More job advice:

If you have any skills you can use on a computer, even text editing, copy writing, data entry, etc. there are plenty of one-off jobs available.

Try Freelancer.com

It’s a reputable site, with thousands of projects listed. You can bid on jobs, and they have a good escrow system to ensure that you get paid.

Look at their categories for

[ul]
[li]Writing and Content[/li][li]Data Entry & Admin[/li][li]… any other skills you have.[/li][/ul]
Browse through the projects and see if anything looks suitable.

Thank you GreenWyvern, I will definately sign-up there and see if I can find some work-at-home jobs!

[LiliesOfTheField]

See if there’s a social worker at your local senior resource center?

Or through your adult protective services?

[LiliesOfTheField]

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of you.

For your SSDI claim:

Tell your worker /rep/claim person politely that you are going to call your congressman.

Then call your congressman and tell them what’s going on.

If s/he helps like they are supposed to, tell everyone you know to vote for them.

(Last step is optional, but a good thing)

Call and keep calling. The folks at the SSDI office have the power to put your app on the top of the stack. Theres still red tape but they can expidite.

You aren’t alone in this.

[LiliesOfTheField]

@anomalous1

Ohio definitely will have some sort of food and housing assistance programs, as well as libraries and community colleges for you to use internet if things get dire, and shelters that you can use (and an address to receive your mail for important documents) or set up a P.O. Box.

One free option is to pick up your mail at the Post Office. It can get delivered to:
Your Name,
General Delivery
Town, state zip

Obvs not the best looking for a job seeker but it"s no cost and it works.

[JerrySTL]

@Delicious

I’ve heard lots of homeless people try to make it to Hawaii, nice and warm I imagine

Hawaii is really cracking down on homeless people lately including destroying the homeless encampments. Evidently there’s more homeless per capita in Hawaii than any other state and Honolulu has a big problem with it.

[DorkVader]

@LongTimeLurker

I have followed this board off and on since the early eighties. I have learned alot, laughed alot, and raged alot.

So now I need some help. I am 60 years old with next to no skills. I worked in a warehouse up until last year when I couldn’t keep up anymore. Physcial and mental problems kept me from keeping my last job. I haven’t worked in over a year and my physical problems have gotten worse.

For the last six months or so my eyes have started to bail on me. I haven’t had insurance for over a year so when I did go the doctors it was on my dime. Dry eye or some such thing is my problem. I couldn’t afford the Big Pharma drugs so I have been using OTC eye drops.

My eyes cement over when I sleep so that when I try to open them when I wake up I have to rub them to get them to open. They also itch alot when I am awake so I rub them at those times too. After rubbing them, they burn and I can barely keep them open. This happens every day and every night.

Every day I blink and rub and squirt eye drops, not such a big thing compared to the problems that other people have, but it is a problem for me. I applied for SSDI over a year ago and my claim was denied. I updated my claim with my eye problems, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. I can barely see at times.

So my IRA and my savings are gone. My love and hope for my country is also gone. A lot of people here at the SDMB have given me a lot of hope over the years, but there has been a major disconnect from the SDMB fighting ignorance and the majority of the US being paid to stay ignorant. The SDMB still gives me laughs and reasons to rage. But my hope is gone.The racist’s rose up to vote.

I have a lot of pills and a garbage bag that will fit over my head. Unfortunately, over the past few months that exit strategy doesn’t seem to be as likely to me as I once had hoped it would be. I don’t have anything to offer society anymore, yet I don’t seem to have the balls to bail out on life, maybe I am just scared.

I am on the brink of homelessness. There was a thread here on homelessness recently and there wasn’t much help there for me. Posters offered some great suggestions, but I am not able to help myself so much anymore. I know this isn’t easy to read, but it isn’t easy for me to type it out either, I have to keep blinking, rubbing, squirting eye drops, and I can’t lift fifty pounds repetatively anymore. So I need your help.

I used my credit card to pay my rent and pay for my food this month. I am out of cash, I have barely enough cash left to make the minimum payment on the card

I have at least 5K of room on my credit card. I also have a valid US passport and Ohio drivers license. I currently spend 655 a month on rent. I can maybe keep up this charade through November. It starts to get cold in November in Ohio.

I will be homeless soon, and I want to weigh my options. Commit a crime and go to jail? I have been in jail before, but not prison. Since I am too much of a pussy to take the pills, maybe prison is the ‘back door’ solution to the end of my life?

I have called homeless shelters in Columbus and there is a waiting list. You have to call them everyday to find out if there is a bed available. I am not sure how homeless people have such access to a phone everyday, especially since when I called their number I was on hold for over an hour.

There has to be a better place to be homeless than Columbus, OH. I also have a vehicle. I have thought about driving to Canada, but they have enough of our refugee’s already and I don’t know that they would care to put me into a heated home. They would probably drop me off at the border and say good luck.

The same with Mexico. An old gringo without any money? They don’t even bother taking you to the border. They will take my car away and put my carcass in the desert. Not a totally bad way to go though.

So sell my car and buy a one way ticket to where? Actually, I am sure there are places in the US I could drive to that would let me use my credit card for couple of months that would be a warmer place to be homeless in than Columbus.

I would love to find another country that would be willing to take a refugee from the US.

Dopers, most of you are the smartest and most compassionate people in the world that I know of. Five thousand dollars buys me about two months here, can I get four months somewhere else?

color and size change is mine to direct your attention to what caught my attention the most Long Time. (and also make it easier to read, the default type on quotes is terrible)
What kind of warehouse did you work in? Was it cold storage, commercial/light industrial/industrial warehousing, household goods, retail storage? What did you do in the warehouse? Did you drive or ever get certified to drive fork lifts? If so, what type or types of forklift? Warehouse Management is a real, in demand skill set with many aspects that are translatable to other jobs if it is simply not possible for you to continue working in that setting.

[LongTimeLurker]

@LiliesOfTheField

See if there’s a social worker at your local senior resource center?

Or through your adult protective services?

Thank you LOTF, I don’t know of any senior resource center’s, but I will Google that and adult protective services too.

[LongTimeLurker]

@LiliesOfTheField

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of you.

For your SSDI claim:

Tell your worker /rep/claim person politely that you are going to call your congressman.

Then call your congressman and tell them what’s going on.

If s/he helps like they are supposed to, tell everyone you know to vote for them.

(Last step is optional, but a good thing)

Call and keep calling. The folks at the SSDI office have the power to put your app on the top of the stack. Theres still red tape but they can expidite.

You aren’t alone in this.

Thank you again LOTF, I will get in contact with Disability Justice (the people processing my claim) and tell them that.

[LongTimeLurker]

@LiliesOfTheField

One free option is to pick up your mail at the Post Office. It can get delivered to:
Your Name,
General Delivery
Town, state zip

Obvs not the best looking for a job seeker but it"s no cost and it works.

Many more thanks LOTF, I did not know that you could do that. That is useful information.

[LongTimeLurker]

@guestchaz

color and size change is mine to direct your attention to what caught my attention the most Long Time. (and also make it easier to read, the default type on quotes is terrible)
What kind of warehouse did you work in? Was it cold storage, commercial/light industrial/industrial warehousing, household goods, retail storage? What did you do in the warehouse? Did you drive or ever get certified to drive fork lifts? If so, what type or types of forklift? Warehouse Management is a real, in demand skill set with many aspects that are translatable to other jobs if it is simply not possible for you to continue working in that setting.

Commercial/light industrial. We processed online orders for Medical Supplies. I started out packing and was also trained in picking. I have been certified in the past on a forklift, but I am a terrible operator. I lost large loads of glass product twice when I worked at Anchor Hocking. I see a lot of warehouse jobs in Columbus, but I can’t lift 50 pounds anymore and that is a requirement in almost all of those listings. I also can’t stand or walk all day anymore. I really do appreciate your input guestchaz, I still follow the warehouse postings around my area, but my lack of physicallity limits me alot.

[Desert_Nomad]

I would seriously consider trying to drive to someplace warmer… S. California, Arizona etc. Unless you can stay in your home through the winter. Living out of your car in Ohio is not really an option.

[DorkVader]

@LongTimeLurker

Commercial/light industrial. We processed online orders for Medical Supplies. I started out packing and was also trained in picking. I have been certified in the past on a forklift, but I am a terrible operator. I lost large loads of glass product twice when I worked at Anchor Hocking. I see a lot of warehouse jobs in Columbus, but I can’t lift 50 pounds anymore and that is a requirement in almost all of those listings. I also can’t stand or walk all day anymore. I really do appreciate your input guestchaz, I still follow the warehouse postings around my area, but my lack of physicallity limits me alot.

Ah, and yeah, I understand about the physical part, there are four warehouses where I work(a small moving company), one is commercial/light industrial.
Whew medical supplies, yeah, I deal with some of that in my job too. Some of that stuff is no joke to move around either from a physical weight/size standpoint or cost to replace if broken point of view.

I can’t help but think there must be something in your work experience that would help you get a job regardless of your physical difficulties and back on your feet financially or at least to a place where you can start getting the medical issues addressed properly.

Say, Have you tried one of the national logistics companies such as Titan or AJ Logistics or Direct Supply or the like (there are several more) These companies handle logistics for construction and furniture supply. We warehouse for the three I named plus several more. I wonder if you could get a job doing that with your warehouse work background? Kinda go over to the other side as it were. Its all remote, desk work, data input, receive requests from the jobsite and submit the orders to the warehouse for delivery. Communication with customers, suppliers and warehouse personnel is done via phone, text and email, plus there is some interfacing of computer systems between at least some of the companies.

Titan, I believe is in Evansville Indiana, and I think a couple are in Ft. Wayne, but I don’t know for sure if or which ones. You could probably even telecommute since its all remote work anyway.