Homelessness: just to keep things light

Finding a place to live is proving significantly more difficult that I ever would have imagined. The place I talked about in the last post was taken when I called to say I wanted it…even though they said they’d wait to here from me…not that I’m bitter or anything. Then I went to see another place, which had a kitchen and bathroom smaller than the one at the hostel I’m staying at and the girl I’d be rooming with was really young. Now I have nothing against living with a young person, especially since I know I hated when people discriminated against me when I was 18, but there’s a big difference between being 18 and acting 18. Also, she seemed kinda racist, which didn’t help her case.

I’ve never realized how important having an address is either. To begin, just to get my study permit to come to SA I needed an address…mostly to prevent exactly what is happening to me, but what can you do. I mean, I tried to open a bank account today and needed proof of address and earlier in the week I tried to get a library card, to no avail. How do homeless people do it? I mean once you get to that stage, you can’t get a job ‘cause you usually need to give them your address…if you did get a job they’d have to pay you in cash since you couldn’t do a direct deposit or cash cheques until you had a bank account. That’s really a backward system. It’s very sad.