Once again, sorry about not writing this weekend-it totally slipped my mind.
On thursday night, Fiona and I first dealt with a man with Mark. Mark was unhappy with his living conditions, saying that his apartment was in bad shape when he got it. According to him paint had been peeling off the walls when he first moved in, and his TV (a 1987 flat screen?) had been ruined by a leaky ceiling. He wanted to fill out an emergency housing form, but we quickly realized that he did not qualify because he was not homeless and was not going to become homeless, and in reality his living conditions were not even that bad. He admitted that his landlord was actually a pretty fair woman (she had offered to buy him another used television), and that he never had a serious problem with her. With all of this in mind, we recommended that Mark just talk to his landlord again about fixing the roof. Housing is, after all very difficult to find, and we explained to him that he would not want to move out over such a small problem.
Our second client's name was Junia, and her situation was a bit more dire. Junia had been on the Public Housing list and the Section 8 waiting list for most of that year, and had finally made her way to the top of the Housing list. However, the notice Waltham Housing Authority sent out never reached Junia, and she had consequently missed her opportunity and been moved to the bottom of the list. WATCH had tried to talk to a man in charge of the housing list and convince him to give Junia another chance, but he refused to do so. This was greatly upsetting to the client because she had two children and did not know how she was going to pay for living expenses during the upcoming year. I got the feeling that Junia was an extremely determined and hardworking individual who would stop at nothing to give her children a good life. But in this situation there was absolutely nothing she could do, and it saddened me greatly that we could not really do anything to help her. I sincerely hope that further dialogue between WATCH and the Waltham Housing Authority will at least create some sort of compromise so that Junia can receive some financial assistance this upcoming year.
Tyler B
This was definitely the hardest night for me at the WATCH clinic. While Mark was a somewhat understandable situation - helping him understand the meaning of emergency housing and what his expectations as a tenant should be - Junia was a heartbreaking case. How do you try to help someone that has been treated unfairly when there are no options? As Tyler said, she is definitely a hard-working individual, and right now, I can only hope that the characteristics that have helped her and her family make it so far will continue to help her in finding a way to make her housing situation work out.
ReplyDelete-Fiona