by Shannon Takahashi

Created on: November 05, 2008   Last Updated: April 24, 2009

In the Path of the Train Called Homelessness

The six month "redemption period" has expired on my house. The incomprehensible statistics about foreclosures and subprime loans scream at me day after day. I hear the comments of people who do not feel sorry for people losing their homes because they overbought in the first place. They should have known what they were getting into. The problem is that while subprime loans and predatory lending have caused a large part of this mess, I did not have a subprime loan. The reason I cannot make my house payment is that I was disabled on the job, and my employer refused to pay workman's compensation or disability.

My former employer decided after a two month leave of absence that was authorized by two physicians, that they were not going to pay me because I did not have any objective symptoms. I am not sure how they could have known this since they never asked my physicians a single question. They never sent me to a doctor. They never tried to reassign me. They never did an x-ray or an MRI. Some nameless, faceless case manager made the decision, while hiding behind a blank corporate facade, to take everything I have worked for, to wreak havoc on what is left of my life.

I am a 52-year-old woman. I expected to make my living typing medical transcripts until I could retire, which I did not see coming soon. I have raised four children alone, and transcription was a decent living, but there was never quite enough left over. Since the end of my marriage, there has been a line of institutions waiting to steal what was left, picking me over like carrion dumped in the desert. These include the divorce court judge who gave my ex everything he asked for, the state when my ex taught my children to party thereby leading them into trouble with the courts, the costs of helping my daughter raise her daughter that she had alone and too young. The list of circumstances that have contributed to my not having enough to fall back on is long, and some of them deserve their own writing sessions, but the last straw is being unable to work now for 20 months, with no income whatsoever because of my former employer's illegal actions. Of course, I have hired an attorney, who assured me that this case would not take long. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask him to define long.

It is stunning to me that I cannot sue my former employer for damages. My house is about to become a HUD property. There are certain criteria that allow you to rent your former property back from HUD and remain in it on a month-to-month rental basis, which I have more than documented and sent to them, but they are refusing to rent to me with no reason given. This decision has been made by yet another faceless, phoneless bureaucrat who can rip away my last shred of hope without ever having to hear my voice or look me in the eye.

Now I wait every day for the letter in the mail that will make my homelessness final. It is coming just as surely as the snow storms and the holidays of winter. Yet another nameless, faceless member of shining humanity will, with a thoughtless stoke of his or her pen, tear my last refuge from me. I urge all who read this to be gentle when dealing with the homeless. You really have no idea how they got there, but it is not always the result of drugs and/or alcohol. It is not always their choice. It is not always caused by mental illness. You may just be looking at someone who has been caught in the epicenter of insurmountable circumstance. Of all the possibilities that I would have foretold for my life, I never saw this one coming. It will be here any day now.

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