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Oh man, is this a subject I'm currently experiencing first hand. Two months ago I was illegally searched during a jaywalking stop and lost everything I owned,
by cubano 9y ago
Oh man, is this a subject I'm currently experiencing first hand. Two months ago I was illegally searched during a jaywalking stop and lost everything I owned, including my much-loved remote webdev job, all my tech and clothes, and pretty much all of my societal self-worth.
For the last two months I've been living on-and-off at a shelter, and the problems are legion as far as working my way out of it.
Finding a decent paying job while navigating the shelter minefields? I battle it everyday, but when someone steals your charging cords and toiletries while you sleep and you lose all connections to the net for a week while you figure out how to get a new USB-C charging cord with no income and miss a week's worth of trying to find work, it's easy to be discouraged and wonder if you will ever make it.
I'm 52yo and I'm exhausted all the time, except for a couple of hours in the morning after I wake and work on trying to find work. According to the health app in my phone, I'm walking 6-8 miles a day just getting between the local Starbucks where I "work", the shelter, and places where I can find some crap to eat.
What I find most odd is that there is absolutely no tech whatsoever at the shelter...no public wifi, very minimal computer access (30min a day after hours wait). Don't get me wrong I am incredibly grateful that the shelter exists, and the kind folks working there are doing God's work, but too many people "living" there are making no efforts to move on and just see the place as a free flop-house.
Lately I've been sleeping in an empty lot near downtown because I've twice now caught fairly serious illnesses sleeping at the shelter, and it's ridiculous that you are expected to bunk-up at 3p everyday at a place with no public wifi so someone like me can't work in the afternoon and evening..
Yes yes, I get it...I made the choices that put me in my shit-sandwich situation, but doesn't everyone, even the "blameless" people depicted in this story? Couldn't most have made better choices somewhere along their lives to prevent themselves from having to live in low-income situations?
Much of the article discusses how the rich developers, in Florida at least, are gaming the tax-credit side of building low-cost housing in order to enrich themselves illegally.
Same old same old. I’ve known many building contractors in my life and almost all employ various sorts of schemes to make extra money during the construction phases.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago> Two months ago I was illegally searched during a jaywalking stop and lost everything I owned, including my much-loved remote webdev job, all my tech and clothes, and pretty much all of my societal self-worth. How does that happen? How does a search during jaywalking stop lead to loss of those things?
- magic_beans 9y agoI'm gonna assume OP had drugs on him and was subsequently arrested, but if not that, there's no reason jaywalking should lead to the loss of one's entire inventory of possessions and job...
- vkou 9y agoThere's no good reason for the police to conduct illegal searches either...
- geezerjay 9y ago> There's no good reason for the police to conduct illegal searches either... You have to take OP's word on that.
- jnicholasp 9y ago> You have to take OP's word on that. Is there a good reason not to?
- vkou 9y agoAs a homeless person, I'm sure that he's had a lot more experience in interacting with police then most of us.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoNeither should the possession of drugs.
- fencepost 9y agoConsider adding a contact method to your profile.
- cubano 9y agoI spent a great deal of time pondering this very thing, and always conclude that due to my very frank nature of admitting arrests and drug use, that including it would surely do more harm then good. [edit] Ok so I created a generic yahoo email account and added it to my profile...you were right I should at least try. Thanks for the reminder.
- fencepost 9y agoI see a dev site but no email? I'd swap those out.
- cubano 9y agolampdeveloperforhire@yahoo.com
- jshevek 9y agoThere is a phone number listed on the site given in your HN profile. Can you be reached via txt at that number? Definitely remove that site from your HN profile, as the other posted suggested. It plus google severely compromises your privacy.
- cubano 9y agoI removed the link. So yeah my conundrum...how in the hell can you be taken seriously enough to get hired and still remain basically anonymous? I'll without a doubt admit that I'm flying pretty much blind these days trying to juggle being homeless, having terrible tech, and trying to find a way out, and I am almost surely making mistakes that may someday really come back to bite me.