My Story On Housing and Headaches

I started living in independent housing in about 2011 or so. I first lived in a small apartment on West Ninth Avenue, but this building sadly was infested with bedbugs. Nobody paid attention unless I had to make multiple complaints and by that time, there were bites everywhere on my limbs, arms and legs and in some cases, on my face. There needed to be multiple sprays and when a new group purchased the building, they used ineffective treatments which did little to keep bugs out of the building, rather the bugs just moved around. This place also had a microwave of its own, but this one would always require labeling. As a blind person, I couldn’t just get access to a microwave without a trusted friend to help, and recently, this friend became a luxury. As a victim and survivor of nonfatal strangulation and domestic abuses by an ex partner, himself also blind, I also have to grapple with the loss of available help, being blamed for being a bad person, etc, and housing did little to stop this. This man is still living in that building, but it is also not safe for our son. We would never be able to attain a house with the current things as they are set up. When I wanted to consider a family, Habitat for Humanity kept coming up in my searches, or even discussions, but the requirement of sweat equity can be either a barrier or a volunteer opportunity depending on the person and their needs. The disabling factors of blindness do prevent certain visual tasks relating to the sweat equity, but often for us, even combined with a partner, we are still not making enough to meet their income requirements. Leases are also a huge issue and today, I’m writing this in a so called affordable housing unit on South Lowell in Littleton, but this building’s office is also a problem. They are not communicative with me as a blind tenant. I can’t even pay my rent without having to use another person to drive to an appropriate spot, Walmart for example, and collecting a check or money order from there, it is painful. I can’t pay rent on my own terms, and even if I could write that check, I still have to know how to handwrite the address, and if I don’t, my identity and the safety of rent is highly at risk. I have had to put my life in the hands of sighted professionals, social workers for example, in order to ensure this does not become an issue. But the social workers will be gone soon, and even worse, I am still not getting support enough in recovery, group schedules do not accommodate rigid schedules of other people. As a blind survivor, housing is also quite absent of accessible appliances. In this current apartment, I now have to give up my smartphone to a caregiver who is for the general public, likely a very shady character. My actual current caregiver is not this way, but the building insists on inaccessible launry units in a communal space, and I don’t get to choose how and when I launder my own clothing. The other big barrier is the lack of choice for accessible housing in your unit. My stove had to be crude labeled with a sighted person, and had it not been for a social workers, I would not be able to prepare meals at all. I also have been denied support in purchasing a microwave, being told to borrow a cheap inaccessible one, and was not helped purchasing a longterm and more usable one from Panasonic. The sighted vitriol toward blindness, one offing our support, is a barrier too. Because of the economic inflation, nonprofits have not been receiving enough funding, and if I ever have to deal with such budgeting discussions, housing comes up. I become angry even at one word of such, and this being because I was also financially abused and exploited by my ex partner. He orchestrated the theft of $3500 worth of equipment, only barely half somehow salvageable through the Howard Fund, and my budgeting discussions somehow got me threats to put me in assisted living. It has become so … horrible, lately. I also have run behind paying my security system, ADT, and must have a nonprofit finance this now as I can’t live in any estate, this word meaning apartment or even a property I own, without viable security. The ADT panel is also visual, not usable by blind people. I have to somehow reach them, complain that my appliances aren’t working or are inacessible, and then sit around waiting because there aren’t trusted friends who can reasonably label anything in my unit. My dishwasher isn’t one I would want to keep forever, and my oven is a Frigidaire, but it has no company overlay, but if I had control over what was in my unit, I would go with GE, General Electric, because of their Braille kits and prepackaged overlays, available upon order or request, it would have made stuff way way easier. My rent being paid by someone else and not the gold standard not only puts me a risk but puts others in bad spots too. OFten when I demanded an online portal to use for secure private pay of my rent, I was met with no desire from my tenant office to support it. I am at a point where a lawsuit against the housing authority for failing in this way could be my next step. I’ve complained to HUD but nobody seems to know how to handle this, and with no family or friends to take care of others’ missteps, I have to live by the mercy of a ruthless set of demigogues whose plans don’t align with the needs of disabled persons. My recommendations to the task force are as follows: the application process for all housing should be a breeze. I should be filling these out online, and the website cannot use overlays, AccessiBe for example. The same applies to a lease, and even after offering my John Hancock for this purpose, signing the endless mountains of paperwork, I should be guaranteed that my appliances are ready for me to use as well. For sighted able privileged people, this is a guaranteed, but as a disabled tenant, I have to wait or get a friend to fix the problems. Let me just say I am NOT goig to demand someone fix my landlord’s slacking behaviors ever, and that’s what happened. For wheelchair users, there definitely needs to be grab bars, stair rails and elevators where appropriate. Wheelchair ramps aren’t just for wheelchair users either, they are great helps in hauling stuff and my baby son in and out of a place. My eighteen-month-old boy may one day be asked to haul groceries, and yes, this is part of being a responsible human, and yes, I will be more than happy to bug my son to haul in that 200 pound bag of kitty litter when needed. A ramp is a helpful tool for stuff like this. I’m also a big fan of bars, grab bars. They don’t just help with wheelchair transfer to shower seat or toilet, they also help when I have no place to put my showering things, or even for me, I use those to help stand up when the situation calls for it. I also put my wide toothed comb hooked over one end. There is so much that an accessible housing place can give, and the National Federation of the Blind also says it’s not just benefiting blind or disabled people. It’s for all of us. While I live in housing, I recommend we hireh more to maintain a unit, but for parents like myself, I want to see more of an available way to get us actual HOUSES, not rental apartments where nobody is talking to you, getting your stuff fixed up, or not letting you get stuff done the same day. My bathroom door lock was so bent that my ex partner got mad, rightly so. A maintenance guy had to give us a whole new bathroom door knob. … And that’s not all. I feel like living in a rental can become a health hazard when someone purposefully overruns their unit with roaches, and since I can’t see, someone else spots a roach on my counter, kills it, and … wow. It’s someone upstairs! All units and housing for people with disabilities should include a washer hookup, and for me as a blind parent, that should be mandatory. No excuses. An ADA compliant setup must be available when I move in, and this goes for washer, dryer, dishwasher, oven, any other applicable appliances. I don’t care to be responsible for paying separate laundering costs when the communal machines don’t meet my needs, then it requires me to put my laundering in the hands of a crook or put me at this further risk. My mailbox should also be just my mailbox, and this goes for all blind people. I can’t tell you the many times people give me the hardest time about accessibility in checking mail! For me, that special friend we call the “mail man” is totally something I’d mandate because for me, I want trust at my driveway and I want to make certain the mail man is putting my mail in a box. And yes, I reserve my right to spoil the postman with any treats likely he’d require, or she. My friend Helen is a mail carrier following in the footsteps of her father, Steven Krug. Helen is taking the torch Steven left behind upon his passing. I think about Helen’s clients, how are they going, and the smiles everybody has on their faces, “It’s the mail lady!” I had one too, in Florida, but Helen doesn’t deliver mail to my old haunts, but I recommend someone like her everywhere. Our mail carriers are the messengers we will rely on when times get tough, and I want my mailbox to be safe in the hands of such. Thank you for your consideration.