Is Anyone Else Worried About Homelessness?

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A recent study showed that 12.4 percent of the Homeless population is autistic, despite us being only one to three percent of the general population...

When I was nineteen, my grandmother told me that she was going to kick me out because of my frequent meltdowns and my constant criticism on what she values-- reputation, having a clean house, being respected-- over larger things like art and love and contributing to humanity... I told her that I would be okay with this and that I would have a tent in the woods and bring all of my books with me and keep them in my tent so that I could only and always read as during this time, I had convinced myself that food was not necessary and that I could survive on learning and creating alone-- however, then she yelled at me, telling me this was just another way for me to be raped-- and, despite being a sexual assault survivor at this time, this did not occur to me. She did not make me homeless until a few years later, however, I lived with my best friend, who is also autistic, and my dad...

I am frequently anxious that, one day, I will not have a place to live as I am currently between houses right now and am staying in my private dorm at University during semesters-- this, however, leaves winter break and summer as a time where I am bouncing between houses-- and, yes, I do imagine myself bouncing, like I am uprooted from the ground, plunged back up into the atmosphere, and then falling down, weighting to be stabilized by gravity again. I, however, know that if I were not to be able to handle school right now, I would be homeless as I have trouble working long hours at the places people without Bachelor's degrees work out. I have trouble with loud noises and certain smells and have difficulty interpreting social information quickly enough to apply it practically, as a cashier would need to and in previous attempts at being a cashier, I terribly failed at... I also have difficulty caring about a job only for the purpose of monetary gain; I would often forget to pick up my checks at the awful retail place I worked at from the age of 18 to 20-- where I remained the "fitting room girl" the whole time as I had tried other things, but utterly failed at them. I saw myself as only going because my grandmother told me to go... However, on the other hand, when I was a writing tutor at my community college before university, I would frequently forget to put in my hours because I loved the job so much that I did not want it to be dirtied by monetary gain... The director of the writing center was always kind enough to put my hours in for me... However, now I have no job as I did not get work study when I came to University and I am worried that I will not be able to handle a job to pay for things like health insurance in the future... Mostly, I have trouble understanding the ways of the world, or caring or valuing for what the world values... I want people to care about literature, about Sylvia, and I want people to value humans over monetary gain and art over monetary gain... I do not fit and I am become overwhelmed by so many things...

I can even imagine myself as some homeless street prophet, telling others about Sylvia, producing an entire religion that calls for her second coming-- "Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair and/ eat men like air"... while I am just quoting Sylvia all day long and forever... and, not including the practical likelihood of my susceptibility to human trafficking or prostitution, I think I would be happy doing this, speaking of Sylvia to random people all day, offering lessons, reading her all the time... but I think this is a romanticized image...

I am placing a poll; however, I would like to hear other autistic people's anxieties or assurances on this subject...

I'd quite like to be homeless, as long as it was somewhere nice, quiet and peaceful - like in the woods.

I personally feel the same way; I think that if I brought all of my books along with me, or at least my favorite books, that I could be happy living "A Blithesdale Romance", living like Thoreau in a Transcendentalist dream and I could sit on the ground and watch the insects and collect leaves and bathe in Walden pond... and read Sylvia and Mary Oliver all day... I would like this very much...

You should watch the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last: in it, a bank teller - played by Burgess Meredith - and a devoted bibliophile, after being faced with constant hostility and cruelty from his bibliophobic wife and colleagues, goes down into the vault to read and, upon returning to the surface, finds that nuclear Armageddon has occurred and the only building remaining in his town is the library. For years, this episode has captured my imagination - it's like an exact outline of my dream world - just me, alone, with all the books in the world and nobody to harass or endanger me.

It doesn't work out in the end, but I won't spoil the ending for you.

LGBT

Autistic

Long term unemployed

No job skills

Yes


Thankfully the area where I live is not too homophobic

Plenty of soup kitchen

Mild weather

I have a lot of disabilities besides autism & my mom has threatened to kick me out sense I was little due to my behavioral issues. I had LOTS of bad meltdowns as a kid & teen cuz of stress from bullying & having to do homework & other skewl stuff when I got home. I really needed time to wind down & relax instead of working on my skewl stuff especially sense I have learning disabilities. I ran away from home lots of times as a kid & teen when I had meltdowns over my mom being on my case about things. She always went down the road & got me thou & brought me back home. My mom threatened to kick me out alot as an adult too cuz I only worked for about 38 months. I was putting in apps for anything I thought I could do at any place I could get to but I was very seldom hearing back & then I didn't always pass the interviews. Part of the reason mom was mad was because I wasn't contributing financially when I wasn't working. I was on SSI but I had to pay for private health insurance cuz no docs in my area accepted Louisiana Medicaid because it didn't pay them enough. I had to pay out of pocket to see my psychiatrist cuz my insurance didn't cover mental & I had to pay some out of pocket cost for non mental stuff too. I was also paying the cable & net bill & my phone bill & didn't have much left afterwords.
Anyways... Despite my risk of being homeless, I never really thought about it or worried about it much. No mattered how much I worried about it I would still be in the same situation when I became homeless so dwelling on the risk would just stress me out & not do me any lick of good.

If I leave my wife, I would be homeless.

The apartment is under both of our names----but I wouldn't want to live with someone whom I'm breaking up with.

I’ve been homeless on and off and I’ve currently had no fixed address for over 6 months. It doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the reason I’m homeless is because of extreme poverty and that’s due to not being able to hold down a job. I’m fairly young and wondering how do I make it to 65 so I can go on the old aged pension??! It’s either that or kill myself and I’ve been there too many times too.

I've had a few short spells of "sofa surfing", though thankfully I have never quite ended up living on the streets. Since leaving my parental home at 18, I have moved address 16 times (not including other people's sofas that I dossed on.)

Yes, it's an anxiety. I'll certainly never be a home owner (nor do I really wish to be), and I've had very long spells of unemployment (including now). There's a shortage of places to rent, and private landlords often reject tenants out of hand because they are receiving benefits (US: welfare), or have a poor credit history (I'm sometimes rejected because I have no credit history at all - I've never had any repayments to make because I never borrowed, partly out of principle.) The most available and affordable rented places are often in high-density housing and very build-up urban areas; the kind of places most likely to lead to problems with my sensory sensitivities and social anxieties. I need my home to be a sanctuary where I can recharge my batteries, not a place which itself adds to the stresses that lead to burn-outs. My autistic traits make even looking for a new place to rent difficult - lots of phone calls, unfamiliar people and places, travelling for viewings, etc. When the end of a tenancy is looming, my stress levels go through the roof.

On the other hand, I live much of my life on auto-pilot. As much as I hate change, once I've settled into a new routine, it becomes my new "normal" extremely quickly - I blindly follow my new routines while daydreams keep my mind off hardships, or at least from tackling them. Harsh as life on the streets must be, I have a suspicion that if I ever did become homeless, I might become one of those who never returns to settled life.

I do fantasise sometimes about running off and becoming a "wild man of the woods" (I've got the look nailed already!) But I know that realistically, I would probably starve to death within the week - I don't have the skills to be so self-sufficient, and there is nowhere accessible to me where one really could live that way. If it looks like I'm going to be dragged off to a care home, I might do it just so that my last hours can be tranquil; otherwise, it's really just an alternative form of suicide.

None of those options really fit. For now I am not worried about homelessness, me and my boyfriend have an apartment we can afford(though barely) so its not a concern right now. But if something happened to where my boyfriend lost his job and couldn't find work or there was a fire or any big disrupting event we could very well end up homeless. I am getting SSI right now so I would not be able to afford rent with that.

My boyfriends been homeless before but was able to stay with people, my dads homeless but has family members and friends to stay with a lot of times.

thankfully this is one area i dont have a concern as we just had a massive injury payout and its paid our mortgage so we are mortgage free and since i earn about 17k in uk money and my partner is on basic rate which is 33k before any extras for overtime and callouts we are lucky to be in a very fluid cashflow.

I used to be worried about becoming homeless. I'm currently 100% dependent on my parents, and that doesn't look like it's going to be changing anytime soon, so I was quite concerned about what would happen to me once they're gone. I've only been able to get two part-time cleaning jobs in my life, despite having a college degree and applying to just about every job I thought I could actually perform for around six months before getting either of them. Trying to apply for SSI, but I doubt they'll think I'm "disabled enough." So being able to support myself doesn't seem very likely. I don't have any friends I could stay with, or even a car I could live out of, so if I ended up homeless, I'd probably be out on the streets or in a shelter, if I could find one. The only reason I'm not concerned about it anymore is because I've decided that once my parents are gone, I'm going to kill myself, if I'm still alive I've had on-and-off depression for over a decade, haven't gotten much joy out of life during that time, and also have had little to no will to live during that time. The only thing that's kept me from actually trying it sooner is that my parents would be hurt by it, so if they're gone, I will let myself.

When I was in school 50 years ago, one of the classes I took was Advanced Poetry and one of my favorite poets was Sylvia Plath.

I don't fear being homeless because I am independent. I built my own home with my own hands and never had a mortgage on my home. It is all mine. I learned to work at a young age, around 13 and I used my labor to earn money and buy things that interested me. When I was in college, I worked full time during summers and part time (20 hours per week) during the school year. Now that I am old, I have accumulated hundreds of thousands of skills and it gives me great versatility.

What I do not understand, is how the people that earn minimum wage, prevent from being homeless. Plenty of people earn minimum wage. That is not enough for room and board.

I don't fear homelessness as such, but am terrified of having to live with other people or in a crowded place. I do own my little house in the woods free and clear and that is precious.

Maybe they inherited the home, someone else bought it for them, they had a lot of money at one point, or if they're renting they may get subsided housing where the rent is based on your income. My girlfriend lived in subsided housing for a year before she qualified for Section 8. Section 8 pays for housing in private & public places as long as the landlords accept it, the total coast or rent is under a certain amount, & your income is low enough to stay in the program. The rent you pay is based on your income. Those programs have waiting lists thou that are probably getting longer since Trump is trying his hardest to f#ck all the programs disableds & the poor are forced to rely on. I never knew about those types of housing benefits when I lived with my parents. Me & my parents looked into housing for me but I didn't have the rite official diagnoses to qualify for housing. I have aLOT of disabilities but basicaly I'm not disabled enough by specific disabilities to qualify for any housing or other benefits. I do get Social Security Disability & Medicare & Medicaid & I was on SSI before I started working & had the state Medicaid that only covered prescriptions sense no docs accepted it.