Return and Volunteering

Well. It’s been more than a year now since I’ve written anything here. I was hoping to write more, but honestly, I didn’t know what to write. I haven’t been involved in anything that would give me material to write about so I have felt pretty empty as far as that goes.

Let me open up here for a moment. I live in government housing. It’s a decent house in a pretty good neighborhood. Thanks to the manager of the apartment complex I once lived in before I moved here I feel safe. It’s a long story and I’d rather not go into detail about what happened four years ago. I’m just grateful to that manager, who is thankfully still my manager since she transferred positions when I moved.

One of the requirements from HUD for anyone living in public housing who is unemployed, under 62 years of age, and who is not disabled to do community service or be involved in a self-sufficiency program eight hours per month. It’s not a lot and can, in most cases be easily done. For some it may be easier than others.

Only certain establishments would accept government housing tenants to do volunteer work for them. At one time there was around 25 companies, but it has dwindled since the last time I spoke to my caseworker. It seems that there have been many tenants who caused problems and so those companies decided that they no longer wanted to allow any of us to volunteer for them.

There was a time when there was only one place that I could go because it was close to my house and I didn’t need to rely on public transportation. I wanted to volunteer at a food pantry, and I even spoke with Amber Wood about this. She told me that she would love for me to work there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money for the bus.

So, I chose to volunteer at the community center which was the place that I could walk to. It was only a 15 minute walk and I didn’t mind that. But the person that I worked for wasn’t always there to sign the papers to prove that I was there. And the secretary was pretty rude, but I think that could be because of her experiences with other tenants who didn’t want to be there and therefore caused problems.

That was last year. Pretty much around the time that I stopped writing here. And now, it’s time for my annual recertification. Every year I have to fill out a new “personal declaration” form where I have to answer questions about my all of my assets including my income and who lives in the house. It’s about four page long and it’s not one of my favorite things to do. But I found that getting it done early gave me a bit of a relief.

My appointment is next Friday and I’m supposed to bring in proof of my income, a bank statement, and my recent utility bills. I had also planned on bringing in a form with hours that I thought I would be working at the food pantry or distribution center. But I just found out today that they don’t want our help. I wonder if they would if I were to just come in without it being for the government housing here.

This makes me sad. And upset. I wanted to help. I have at least 154 hours that I have to do but once those were over, I had planned on continuing my volunteering efforts. Funny. Now that I am able to take the bus there, I’m not able to go. And the money that I do have, needs to be used for those hours that I have to make up. It won’t do me any good to take a bus to do volunteer work that won’t count for the hours I need.

I’ve called several other places and people are telling me “no” left and right. I have until November to make up this time and if it’s not complete by then, I could be evicted from this house. I wish HUD would understand that there are people who want to volunteer, but may not be able to for one reason or another.

There are other places that I need to call again and to call for the first time. So, there is hope. There’s always hope, right? I still have time and it won’t do me any good to worry about this. All I can do right now is call companies who take volunteers and ask if I can work for them. If not, then I’ll have to think of something else. And hope for the best.

I found a list of FAQ about community service on the HUD web site. There are ways to avoid being evicted. Instead of just simply hoping for the best, I'm going to expect the best.