I am learning empathy for the homeless

[Hydrae]

I don't even know how to start. Right now, it looks like my wife and I may be homeless next month. I was laid off from my job after 9 and a half years because the company decided to change the structure of their gold standard support team. That was a wonderful Monday morning last October. At least the one other time I was laid off it was because they moved their support team to India. That was at least kind of understandable. They also gave me a month's severance pay for each year I had worked for them (6 years). This time I got 2 months of severance for my 9.5 years of service. Given my previous experience, that felt like an additional slap to the face.

In an attempt to keep our house, we have left it and leased it out to 2 of my children, a nephew, and a close friend of one of my sons. This is not a good time to try to sell and we were to the point where we weren't sure we could pay the mortgage. They are covering the mortgage plus about $1000. So technically we have some income and even own a house. That "income" is great, but it doesn't go very far and is far from covering the rent on the apartment we have rented. And without an income we can't even tap into the ~$250,000 of equity (monetary term, not social bullshit!). I suppose we could put it on the market but that would screw over the young people there now and I don't want to pass my trouble to the next generation.

I have worked in tech support for the entirety of this century and that is only 4 jobs. I have never been a job hopper obviously. Since I was laid off last October, I have sent out hundreds of resumes. In that time, I have gotten less than 20 initial interviews and maybe 6 actual interviews. I even made it through the entire process a couple of times but obviously nothing has panned out. I will be 64 in a couple of weeks, and I have to wonder if part of the issue has been a form of ageism. At this point in my life, I am not excited to grow in a career. I just want to do awesome work, go home, and retire in a few years. Corporate America wants people who are looking to advance and better themselves. Of course, in a year or two that new hire will move on to the next opportunity while I would still be there consistent as always (as seen by 4 jobs in over 20 years).

So we made the fateful decision to follow our dream. We had plans to move back "home" to Oregon this past spring. Losing my job put the kibosh on that. Well, in our attempt to keep the house until the Fed lowers interest rates and the housing market to heat back up a little, we have moved to Oregon. I have been working remote since before the pandemic so I should be able to work from anywhere. Of course, after the last 10 months finances are thin to be kind, so it was a bit of a leap of faith. We are here now on the Oregon coast, my wife has a part time job that she loves but doesn't pay much, and I am trying to find ANYTHING at this point. I thought I was going to get a retail job making a whopping $16.75 an hour (I was making $84k a year before the layoff) but got screwed up regarding the drug test and lost that opportunity. Sorry, I do not follow blind links in a text. They could have at least put a note in the text about what the link was for. Well, that was the order for me to go piss in a cup and it expired in 48 hours. I was under the impression that I was going to get an email and was waiting for them to finish a background check. This is considered the same as a failure, so I am out with no recourse. I do feel bad for the manager as she was desperate for someone and will likely have to cancel her vacation in a few weeks.

I know a lot of this is just rambling, but it is how messed up my head is right now. I can't sleep for more than an hour at a time. It is 3 AM as I type this. I have never had an issue with getting a job in my life and have never been out of work for more than a few weeks. Right now, not only do I not see a light at the end of the tunnel, there isn't even a sign of a train. It is just black, and I am stumbling along with no idea where I may be heading. This does lead me to saying thank you to Detox. I noted his signature line a couple days ago and sent him a rep because it buoyed me up. He responded with a wonderfully supportive note which, given my current emotional and mental state, made me cry. That was also the day before I learned that I had screwed up the potential job I had on the line.

So, as the thread title states, I better understand how some of the homeless came to be that way through no fault of their own. I can tell you, the depression and desperation that I am going through does just functioning on a daily basis very hard.

Sorry to dump on everyone's day. I had to try to get some of this crap out of my head. No replies necessary, I just thank Kyle for creating this wonderful community where I can vent. Now I am going to go cry again and maybe, hopefully, get some more sleep.