Public Housing Woes



VENT WARNING.

The backstory: I'm trying to come home to Sydney. I need to do this so I can transition in a place where George Christensen doesn't live, and where the general population aren't coal miners. Have you ever lived in a mining/agricultural town? Then you might understand how oppressively heteronormative Mackay can be.

So there's that. The problem is, I haven't been able to work for years because of my BPD/PTSD, and there's no way I'm going to be able to work while I transition. Especially while I'm doing HRT (mood disorders are bad enough on their own). So my options are basically limited to public and social housing, but I really want a permanent place to live that doesn't cost too much.

Here's the thing: I live in Queensland. According to FaCS policy, I have to have a NSW address in order to get a property. I can provide a medical reason that I need to live in NSW but if the same can be accomplished by moving somewhere else in Queensland, they'll turn me down.

Sydney is my fucking home. I was born there, I was raised there, I only live in Mackay because my family live here. There is zero reason for me to move to Brisbane; you're putting me at further risk by asking me to go to an unfamiliar place when I'm already in a vulnerable position. So I called FaCS yesterday to ask what the deal was, and when I mentioned that they were basically telling me to move to Brisbane she replied: "We're not telling you where to move."

It must be nice to be able to wash your hands of a person so easily, just because they don't live in the right state. You're a service; you exist to cater to the vulnerable and disenfranchised, and I kind of feel like I'm both right now. You're not telling me where to move, but you're fucking implying it.

So my options are these:

  1. Find family to stay with so I can have a postal address. This option probably isn't even appropriate, because I'm not even out to most of my family.
  2. Move to Sydney and live in a homeless shelter or some other kind of emergency accomodation, just so I can get the address I need to prove I'm a resident of NSW.
Both of those rules are kind of bullshit, and I'm tired of Government services making assumptions about the people they serve. The whole system is designed to knock people out of the eligibility. The reason for this is to curb scammers and cheaters, but the problem is that it's impossible to weed out this sort without also hurting the people who actually need the service.

People are being left in the dark because the Government is obsessed with purifying welfare, while simultaneously handing out billions to big corporations and tax evaders with the other hand. Is that not lopsided? Catering to the have-alls while penalising the have-nots?

There's another side to this, though. I was hoping to bring my cats with me on the way down, shipping them from Mackay to my new address in Sydney, but since I won't have an address... I'm probably going to have to rehome my babies. It's been suggested that I find somebody to take care of them in Sydney until I'm ready to take them on but I feel like it's a risk. I don't even know how long it's going to take me to find a house. I could spend this time finding them good homes where they'll be happy, or I could fuck up their lives along with mine. I love my kitties, but I don't know if I could put them through that kind of risk. If it didn't pan out...


Fuck you, FaCS!

</vent>

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