The Rental Crisis of 2023 - USA, Texas

    I saw a story on the news where they showed the number of families being evicted in each county. On average over 2000 families per month from Harris and the surrounding counties in South East Texas. My heart sank, but I was put slightly at ease because I knew then that we weren't alone. We are one of those struggling families.

    We had built a life. A home. A 3 bedroom single family space. We decorated on holidays, and we had bar-b-ques. We decided to move to a new area in August of 2021. Our plan was to get settled for a year or two and then begin looking into buying some land away from the city where we would eventually have a house built. Our kids are getting older and they'll all be graduated by 2030. It's time to start thinking about the next phase of our lives. Never in a million years did I think the home we were renting would be our downfall.

    My husband and I both had jobs and kept up with our family in full for years. Then the rent started going up, the cost of groceries is getting ridiculous, and jobs aren't giving raises to keep up with the cost of living. We ended up on Food Stamps and Medicaid after one year. We held on, and our eldest children stepped up and began assisting us even though they are supposed to be saving up for cars and their first apartments. They work as well. That helped for a bit, but the costs just keep rising.

    We took out an auto loan, but a month later I lost my job. I found other work, but I had to take a pay cut. We still had hope, but we knew we would lose that car to repossession eventually. When that day came, we knew it was only a matter of time before we would lose the house too. We fought on. My husband and I kept looking for better work. Nothing was coming through. We found rental assistance and managed to escape one eviction. We found utility assistance as well. All of that was returned when the second attempt at eviction came through and no more assistance was available. The counties are stretched thin. The housing authority can't even help. We lost our home.

    Now we are living in a hotel, and working to maintain what we have. We all still have jobs, but the reality is the hotels are over priced. We need a home.

    We reached out to some friends in another state and the plan is to move. If we can get the moving money raised, then we can get into a monthly rate hotel there. People have been putting their feelers out for us, and we have jobs waiting for us. All we have to do is get there and start working. 

Follow this link below to the Go Fund Me that my son has made. 

Please Help Us.  

Respect yourself, Protect yourself

 There is something I forgot to cover in my Uncle-Bunkle-Boinky-Head post.

NO. I do not want to do drugs with you, and neither does my husband. 

In my post I talked about my uncle having a past drug problem. I mentioned that he is the one who introduced me to weed. I feel like I need to elaborate on this more.

Keep in mind I am all for marijuana legalization. I do not see weed as a drug, so the fact that he is a pot head is fine. His bills are paid as far as I know, and I only feel like it is a problem if the person is spending their rent and bill money on weed. That is irresponsible. 

With that said, calling me to find cocaine for you because your doctor won't give you your pain medication due to marijuana in your system is another issue. If weed is getting in the way of you getting your pain medication from your doctors, cut it out until you can start again. It hurts, but until Texas comes to its senses, you do what you have to do. 

Keep in mind my husband is a recovered addict, and so am I. We split up for years and both went through our own shit. The audacity of my uncle to come to me on multiple occasions to try to get me to down some mushrooms with him, locate cocaine for him, or even find pills for him is ridiculous. I have told him that I'm not interested. He will wait a while and then come to me again. I lied to him before and said "OK, let me see what I can find" and then not pursued anything eventually apologizing and telling him I couldn't find anything. It's really sad. 

I'm not connected to people like that anymore, and I don't want to be. A good friend of mine used to go out of his way to find things for my uncle, but even he is out of the game. We don't want to go back in. We are done, and I feel like my uncle is the last piece of the puzzle.

The chiropractor did wonders. He could barely walk for a while. He was using a cane. His self medication is "helping," but I know that it's just temporary. He will begin to deteriorate again, and this time it'll be worse than before. He is killing himself, and I don't think he cares much.

As much as you love your family, sometimes you have to separate yourself to protect yourself. 

His name is Uncle - Bunkle - Boinky - Head.

This entry started over a year ago as an endearing piece about my Uncle where I would attempt to paint him in a pleasant light. Quite honestly, I found it difficult to write when I was trying to write him as he would want to be seen, so I have decided to tell the whole truth instead of giving you the bits left when all the bad is gone. What I will not continue to do is pass on the skeleton of truth as it was done to me. Forcing me to figure out everyone on my own and then ostracizing me for telling the truth and forming my own opinions.

Let's begin by allowing you to read what I had originally began to write:

"My Uncle. How do I describe him? Picture a mix of Tim Curry and Chong. He was born in England and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Now, that might confuse some in the room because he graduated high school from Spring High South. Yes, he is that old. Most of you may know it now as Westfield High School, but back then it was Spring High South.

According to himself, he was already mentally grown by the time he got to Houston, Texas. He started hustling money at the age of 12 using his bike to ride around Ponderosa Forrest. He continued doing odd jobs around the neighborhood to make money to help his mother out while she was finding herself divorced and building a new career. He was never without a job, and was always plotting.

The way he put it, he was a quiet young man with a knack for being invisible, a mature understanding of the world, and a sense of humor. One of my favorite quotes from him is, 

"They want you to act a certain way, think a certain way, or say these things....it's all bullshit, man." 

I can't remember the conversation that led up to the comment. He was either talking about school teachers or society (One in the same, if you ask me), but then he leaned back and proceeded to put on the first stand up comedy special I had seen of George Carlin. I fell in love with that old white man. He told the truth, and so did my Uncle.

He used to tell me stories. His father told stories, so I always assumed that's where he got it from. Uncle's were different though. He wasn't telling me about how he lived through historical events. No. He was telling me about how he got away with growing his own tobacco in his mother's garden and producing his own cigarettes, or getting away with a whole delivery truck load of beer with his friends. I believe they spent the weekend drinking it all. One room, floor to ceiling cases of beer, and a pathway to move through it all. It was the 1970's."

All of that is true, but it's amusing because while he was portraying himself as this person for me I was seeing something different. I noticed moments of hypocrisy.