Since his divorce, my friend Douglas has been virtually homeless. (Douglas is not his real name.)
It started with a change in technology. Douglas used to be the editor of a magazine, before artwork became a function of computer programs. He can draw a skeleton with incredible precision and can align artwork by hand. However, he has little patience for or knowledge of computers. Some of this is the result of a stubborn insistence that the work doesn't look as beautiful. Douglas has a BFA from one of the best art schools in the country. That doesn't mean he shouldn't compromise. One problem he faced, however, was that he did not own and, on unemployment, could not afford all the advanced technology he would need to buy to really become proficient at the computer programs. I won't argue that his attitude did not help. However, I am not sure, now that I am the same age he was when this happened, that he might have found employment anyway. Employers look at 38 very differently than 28. We're like pitchers at the ends of our careers suddenly. We're too expensive to train, too experienced to put in entry-level jobs. There's no equivalent of the back of the rotation for us. I fear the worst as I hit the job market myself. No one wanted me at 36 when I was told that I had "been around the block." And I've been sick this year so I am going to get an unsatisfactory rating for attendance. In the end, I should be all right, unless I continue to get sick, depressed and anxious. But, back to Douglas.
To stave off poverty when unemployment ran out, Douglas took a job as a security guard, which paid about a third of what he had earned. This was fine while he was sharing a rent stabilized studio apartment with his wife. Once they divorced, however, (due in no small part to his depression about his employment status as well unrelated issues which made them incompatible), Douglas found himself in the world of 1000 a month studios. He drifted from couch to couch, and as he did, rents continued to rise. He moved from apartment share to apartment share, getting older and less appealing in the world of 20-30 something roommates. Worse, his diabetes began to become more brittle and he found himself hospitalized five to seven times a year. Both of his ex-wives (he's been homeless since the second divorce), have taken him in from time-to-time, but they cannot live with him permanently, nor do any of the parties wish to do so.
Now he is in an apartment share with a woman who constantly threatens to evict him. She invited him to move in when she was out of work. Now that she has a job, she'd rather live alone. She doesn't feel she owes him anything, and she wants her privacy. She has come close to just throwing him out, but he has calmed her with politeness and a promise to look for a place and leave when he can. He has a chance to leave this situation if he hands my landlord one year's rent in advance and gets a guarantor for his lease as his credit has descended dramatically over the years. He's putting together the money with loans. Then he will have a one bedroom apartment which he may be able to share so that he can actually afford the 900 a month rent. (I live out in the boondocks in a building that would be condemned in any normal city. It's rent stabilized, so at least, there are limits to how high the rent can be raised.)
Douglas has never taken public subsidies and doesn't want to do so. All he is trying to do is survive and pay rent. He has colleagues who work as security guards and live in shelters.
If he were to be evicted, it would take years for him to gain public assistance, should he survive. So, he drifts within his continued state of crisis, taking his anti-anxiety meds and hoping for the best.
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