Top-post countdown No. 10: The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness
April 26, 2010Jon Brooks Comments Off- 10. The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness – 24-year-old Brianna Karp’s blog about losing her job and falling into homelessness (Mar 4, 2010)
Our original post:
“Come Thursday, February 24, I will be making my way on the streets of Orange County as best I can, and I will be considered that most stigmatized of people – a homeless woman.”
“Whereas it used to take me a matter of days to find employment, it is now rare for me to even receive calls for interviews – there are simply too many people out there responding to every advertisement.”
“I have worked hard all of my life to ensure stability for myself. How did this happen?”
“I can do this without becoming a casualty or a stereotype. I can be homeless and still clean, nourished, confident, well-dressed, dry in the rain, and warm at night.”
The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness is now over a year old. In February, 2009, 24-year-old Brianna Karp started blogging when she realized she would soon be without residence after losing her job. Things have picked up considerably for her since then (she has a book coming out), but here was the situation when she started, explained in her initial, gripping post:
In three days, I will be homeless.
This is not by choice… Personally, I enjoy having a permanent residence and the sense of stability and security that it gives me. I look forward to living in an actual house again. However, it is what it is – in three days, I will be homeless. There are no caveats here, no “maybe” or “unless” or “possibly I can come up with something before then.” Come Thursday, February 24, I will be making my way on the streets of Orange County as best I can, and I will be considered that most stigmatized of people – a homeless woman.
Initially, the idea of this terrified me. Here is a summary of the commentary that first ran through my head: This would never happen to me. I am not the kind of person that lives on the street. I have a life, I have friends, I have a dog, I have stable employment and residential history, references, education, skills, talents – I have worked hard all of my life to ensure stability for myself. How did this happen, HOW CAN I DO THIS?!?!?!?!
So, I cried for a few hours. I cried and I let the panic run its course. Then, I started planning…
I grew up in Orange County, CA. I got excellent grades and tested in top percentiles at school. I was considered a precocious student and skipped a grade…My family situation was never the best… I was subjected to various physical/mental/emotional abuse for the majority of my life, and sexual abuse from an estranged family member while a toddler. Despite all of this, I strove to rise above my personal situation…
I started working “under the table” at 10, as I knew how to pass for older than I actually was. I got a legal work permit at 12 years old and went to work full-time in addition to schooling… I supported my parent and younger sister from ages 12 – 18. At two points as a teenager, I was physically thrown out of the house while my parent was in the throes of a bipolar depressive episode. Both times, I was on my own for a couple of months…
At 18 I left for good and got a roommate. Over the next several years, I enrolled myself in college and worked my way from entry-level, minimum-wage jobs into administrative and legal secretary positions, then onwards up to an Executive Assistant at a major corporation. For a long time, I always had at least two jobs, sometimes three. When I landed my Exec. Asst. gig, I breathed a sigh of relief…I could concentrate on only one job, I was earning the means to live on my own, in my own house, sans roommates. I rented a cute cottage towards the beach and enjoyed the little life that I had built for myself…
In July of 2008, my corporation had mass layoffs. The economy was beginning to crumble, and the auto industry was the first to be affected due to the skyrocketing prices of gas. Over 280 out of 500 employees were laid off, and I was among them. The company that I worked for was enormously kind and fair to each and every one of us, and compensated us well with a severance package, so I was OK for a while. I did some temp-to-hire work for an environmental engineering company for a few months, but they ended up having layoffs right before Christmas 2008 and again I was out of a job. Since then, I have been searching for employment without success. I am on extended unemployment benefits, but I prefer actual work. Salaries have been slashed by at least 20% (often more) so I have no hope of making what I used to, but that is to be expected – I’m in good company, at the moment it’s a status symbol simply to have a job at all.
In the past three months I have sent out several hundred resumés and applications, some as far away as Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Whereas it used to take me a matter of days to find employment, it is now rare for me to even receive calls for interviews – there are simply too many people out there responding to every advertisement. I do all that I can to make my application stand out, but when it comes down to it, hiring managers must sift through hundreds of resumés for every single position. My chances are severely handicapped at this point, but all I can do is forage on.
Against my better judgment, I moved out of my cottage and in with my bipolar parent at her suggestion. I figured that it would be relatively temporary and would cut my living costs dramatically while I continued to search for unemployment. For just over two months, somehow I made it work. Until two days ago. On a downward bipolar cycle, my parent attacked me and ordered me out of the house. I have been told to leave immediately, but police informed me that I could require a 30-day notice, which I waived as long as I had five days to find other arrangements.
Could I ask friends for help? Possibly. However, my closest friends have so many problems of their own right now – many of them are out of work, or live in small apartments, or have various other personal problems and I am certain that I would be a burden and an imposition on them. There is also the problem of my (very large) mastiff, who I would not dream of selfishly dragging with me into someone else’s home.
So, here I am.
Luckily for me (and my dog!), I recently inherited a truck and travel trailer. Around New Year’s Eve, my biological father committed suicide. I had not seen or had any form of contact with him in over 20 years. There was no suicide note, and it fell to me as the eldest child to divy up his assets (of which there were few) among his four surviving children (my sister and I, and two half-sisters from a second marriage, whom I had never met before). This successfully accomplished, I was left with the aforementioned truck and travel trailer, both of which have registration and insurance paid up through July.
If you are an individual in a similar situation (especially a single, vulnerable woman), I hope that by detailing my experiences in this blog, I may help you come up with tips and ideas for survival and safety for however long your present circumstances may last. Perhaps you didn’t choose for this to happen, but it is what it is. It is happening and you must stay strong and level-headed, so that you can make opportunities happen for yourself and dig yourself out of this hole…
I have just over $300 cash to my name, in addition to various personal belongings. I have three days to take my plans for the coming weeks/months and put them into motion. I have never been homeless before and I will not deny that I am afraid, but I plan to face this with humor and dignity. I can do this. I can do this without becoming a casualty or a stereotype. I can be homeless and still clean, nourished, confident, well-dressed, dry in the rain, and warm at night. I can make wise and preventive decisions that will help protect me and keep me safe in tenuous circumstances. I can and will continue to bring in revenue, interview, and locate permanent employment. I can be a tall woman with flaming red hair, a jowly and imposing Neapolitan mastiff, and a 30-foot RV in tow and still manage to remain inconspicuous and under the radar (…right?). I think that if a wussy chick like me can do all of this, then anybody can.
You can catch up on Bri’s story through her archive of posts from the past year…
Previous top-post entries:
- 25. Colorado Springs: City of the future? – Anti-tax haven Colorado Springs finds itself in desperate fiscal straits, touching off schadenfreude and defensiveness on the Web.
- 24. Sub-prime the Musical – college student creates series of podcasts on the causes of the credit crisis and, naturally, adds song parodies to illustrate the concepts.
- 23. Friday photo gallery Nov 20, 2009
- 22. The Skyscraper Index – This metric shows that the world’s tallest buildings rise on the eve of economic downturns.
- 22. Chances of passing a health care bill – On March 10, Bush administration economist Keith Hennessey upped the chances of health care’s passage from 10% to 40%.
- 22. Friday photo gallery Oct. 30, 2009
- 21. If persons were treated like corporations – Political cartoon from Kevin Moore’s In Contempt site.
- 20. Rappin’ economics – Rap adaptation of the classic econ textbook “Principles of Economics.”
- 19. Friday photo gallery Oct. 9 2009
- 18. Facebook “likes” by city – 210 million Facebook profiles broken down into which pages users click the “like” button on, organized by city.
- 17. Repaired Things – The blog – collection of pictures of things that have been repaired
- 16. Podcast: Local currency bucks the dollar – cash-strapped communities throughout the U.S. make their own money
- 16. Defriending over health care – Did you defriend anyone on Facebook, or were you defriended, in the midst of the furious health care debate?
- 16. Cards of change – altered business cards uploaded by people who have either been laid off or experienced a change in career situation
- 15. Who are the worst tippers? – Waiters comment on which groups of people are the worst tippers, and no one is spared. (Dec 9, 2009)
- 14. 100 Motivational Blog Posts for the Unemployed (Jan 29, 2009) – practical and emotional tips, tools, and resources
- 14. Teabonics – misspellings spotted on Tea Party rally signs (Apr 19, 2010)
- 13. Facebook connections analyzed – interactive Facebook map with lines drawn between geographical areas that share a lot of friends (Feb 22, 1010)
- 13. Friday photo gallery Nov 6 2009
- 12. Happy all the time – Diary of a McDonald’s Happy Meal purchase, in which the subject of the experiment stays unnaturally fresh for a whole year (Apr 5, 2010)
- 12. Merry Recession! – Recession-themed Christmas cards (Dec 15, 2009)
- 11. Living Craigslist – Unemployed college grad travels cross-country using only Craigslist. (Feb 1, 2010)
- 11. Who’s paying taxes?; Distribution of wealth – charts showing which income levels pay what percentage of taxes in the U.S., and the distribution of net worth and wealth (Feb 4, 2010)
