disability

College Loans and Disability

You know, I was initially going to just make a blog post about some positive things in the twitch community. However, something a little more serious has come into play after some thought. So now I will preface it with this. I have tried to get statements from others having this problem, but they did not want to come forward and put their names on it. So the only story I have is my own, but I can say others have had this problem. Unfortunately, no one at this time wants to step forward.

For those who are unaware, I am taking college classes, particularly in two fields of study, business administration and quantitative economics, some pretty heavy stuff. Now I am starting my first few years at a community college and making sure everything has no hiccups. I thought of getting some school loans just in case I could not work my job or something were to occur where if one had to focus on schooling and not work for a time, then it could be done.

Here is the problem. Due to health issues and previous school loans, now in a degree that can no longer be worked, I have what was called a TPD discharge. A total and permanent disability discharge. This means the government in a different department looked at what I originally did and thought. “This guy is no longer medically clear to work the degree he spent time learning and we cannot in good faith have him pay on it.”

Now it also means for three years, I cannot take any school grants, and I cannot take any more school loans until that period is over. I got the help, but for three years, I was on my own if I wanted to go to school. I am not getting any help from my family as they are concentrating on burning everything they have for the sake of cigarettes and cheap nail polish. Grants do take care of classes, but to make sure rent is covered by something would be some relief that I could use. Now, with Biden declaring how a portion of student loans will be forgiven, it would be really good to know what I took out would be removed.

Well, no, I have some questions about the amount and how that will hit a market already ballooning with inflation (remember economics major). The problem is before anyone points at my school loans as a gotcha, one has to be aware. No subsidized loans were made available to me. In fact, the community college in question declared that either a signed note backed by my neurologist or doctor stating that my health was 100% and my previous disability was gone or there would be no subsidized loans available.

It sounded weird, so meetings online were planned and attended where we could go over them more in-depth. The amount asked was not in question as it was low enough it could be handled by a subsidized loan. Still, the fact the Portland Community College explained it was due to the three-year time frame that had already expired with evidence to prove it to them. I did not take my first semester until it was already passed and still made sure everything was cleared beforehand. This made the person dealing with their finances stumble and grasp.

“Oh well even though you are disabled the government doesn’t want to take loans that won’t be paid.”

“So you are because of my disability not allowing me to get cleared for subsidized loans?”

“Correct.”

I did not yell or scream. I simply to my lumps and decided to get more information. Now, I took this to some disability lawyers just to get their opinion, and the consensus was either the Portland area had lawyers with no testicles or there was no case to be had. The problem was the decision was to make sure the loans would be repaid. As they are subsidized, the school would need to okay them from government lenders, and because of that, I would not need to pay interest until I was done with school. It was not the loan givers making it so they could not be sued, and the school was making decisions within their right, according to the lawyers around here, so they cannot be sued. From this point, it was just aggravating because there were still problems to be taken care of and the resources available for others were not available to me.

There was something that could be done, but I adapted, and as it stands, I can continue to adapt. This has been something that others have dealt with, making me a little bit miffed, to say the least. I will try to bring more evidence, but I would like to hear from you.

After A TPD discharge has been used and after the three-year time frame has expired, should they, if able, go into college and learn something to better themselves? For example, should disabled people have the right to school loans, or should they not, or is it something in between?

In fact, I may also have something to write about to help more people. Also, sorry this was late. Between health and problems, time decided to move faster than I liked, but I hope you will like the content coming.

Stay Strong.

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All for the Sake of Power

For all the people trying to help other groups or go to bat for all the supposed slights against their group, one thing that could be done right now and people would actually have to see that Portland is about trying to help people. We have a group of people that are still struggling to get the benefits that should be given to them and often have few or no people to help get them what they are due. Disabled people, across the board, have had to deal with a system that actively pushes them away for the sake of wanting to keep payouts low. This should be a simple thing where we take evidence of the disability and see if it matches what is needed. Make sure one has the evidence to back it up, check the validity of the evidence, and if all that checks out make sure they get benefits to help out. For some reason or another, there just is a time of struggle for anyone trying to get some money in a situation where it seems like the world is against them. 

If you try to make the most of your life despite meeting the disability there is a good chance that you will be denied for years upon years. Each attempt for it failing meant another couple of years before the next appeal. Depending on their health it could very well mean that they will not be able to survive, or that they will be in much worse health because the money that should be there would be something that would allow them to keep some semblance of a quality of life. Some people may not be happy about the disability program thinking it is a quick road to ill-gotten gains and if you had thought this then you never had to go get it because when talking with people who are trying it is more shocking to hear people getting it first try and less shocking that people would wait for ten years just to get some form of pittance.

Pittance by the way is exactly as it should be because remember, this is for the people who can not work gainfully, either full or part-time to earn enough money to live a basic life. According to the census to be counted as under the poverty line one has to earn 12,880 dollars in most of theU.S with D.C, Hawaii, and Alaska. We will work from the lower number for the sake of ease and skewing it against our own side to the point to try and attempt some fair discussion. 12 thousand dollars is a lot in one time but splitting that up times the 12 months means you are now working with just over a thousand dollars but the max one can get specifically for those who have been in low pay work is generally around 800 dollars. 

You could work for ten years and have some maladious effect on your health and you still would not be able to survive on what you get. On top of that if you want to make things so that you find a way to skrimp and save you cannot have more than 2000 dollars in an account to work with. That makes it nearly impossible for people to move or do anything of value when you have to make sure that when you do it you have to make sure you will never need it again, and by the way, this does not include stuff like tax refunds or anything like that. Disability is not set or used as a hand up because there are disabled people if they could be given a way to at least get the resources they have qualified for they would be more open to trying to work or do things to help their communities. 

All of this is based on the ruling of judges who do not care to try for the most part and no punishment or party is keeping them in check. If your judge cannot read, that’s on you, if your judge cannot spell, that’s on you. If your judge just hates disabled people and gets a boner only from making people so miserable that for many there is no response, then find out where they live, send them glitter in the mail and stuff enough fruit up every tailpipe that every car can be called a fruit salad. That is also on you, though. Also, because I know some people may not be able to read the last line and understand the tone, that was done in a joking manner. 

Still, it sucks and it needs work and for a lot of people, there isn’t any hope. Really makes you wonder why more disabled people just haven’t gone full supervillain, wouldn’t shock me a bit. How much would one be able to take before feeling that the world is against them with enough moments to hammer it home.

Stay strong.

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Bad Days and Good Days

Bad days always make me grit my teeth as it seems they happen more and more. But, when your body seems to be falling shorter every day, there will always be good days and wrong and how you feel from one to the other.

When it is a bad day, it seems you are always a step back, on the back foot, and nothing can be done except getting as much done as you can and sleeping at the first opportunity. You can do a lot these days, and it just stinks sometimes. Pain is something that will always be there, and you could feel out of gas before you get out of the front door. Nothing feels worse than feeling less than your best, and things seem like you could do it, but you are not all there.

The day goes on, and you grind out what can be done, and all it leaves you is more tired with little done but a lot of trying. Nothing makes you feel so weak when your body feels like it is betraying you despite the best of your intentions until you finally fall over swearing at whatever gods are listening that you have to deal with such suffering, all for the sake of growing migraines. On top of all that, anything sticking in your craw when it comes to social relationships.

Bad days are like trying to stand up, and it isn’t the world against you. It is your body actively trying to fight your efforts, and it feels like gears grinding against gears. There is no workflow. There is no energy, and everything you try to push up only gets you to from waking up to going back to sleep without enough to make you happy in your days.

Now, if you could not guess, I am not very happy most days. If I did a hundred squats, I would want double. If I could lift a quarter ton, I want to lift half. If I have ten hours of energy, then I want fourteen.

However, when a good day comes, it feels different. For me, it is standing in a storm with winds whipping about around just an area for two parties to handle their differences in as physical a manner as they see fit. Just the winds blow, and the rains fall, and there is a crack of lightning and thunder, and it just feels like it is correct. Look across the area, and it is whatever is in your way, and all you have is the time and the moment to handle your business, and know that one of you will be left standing.

That is a good day that no matter me walking with a cane, I can take a breath and smell the lightning and feel the tremors and lock on target. It is just running and having a moment where it feels like that makes me dangerous. It makes me feel just for a moment like nothing wrong ever happened because I can take it all out on my targets. Good days are rare, but they feel good when they happen.

What are your good days and bad days like? Comment below.

Stay Strong.

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Kata In Administrative Violence

There is something in me that wishes wholeheartedly that makes me want to compete, and I know my body just does not take to it very well, it had been many years since heavy competition and every time I train often ends to me usually hurt and trying to tape myself together before getting even more hurt. What could be so painful as having a mind that is fine and a body that could be the cage, well sometimes one has to work within one’s capability and that means having to deal with the pain of what could have been needs to go away because in the new time one has to do the new things and through it great things can still be done.

For me I hate how my body breaks down but I have been doing more stretching and pushing different things further to try and get back some semblance of the energy I once had, and now despite the passing out at random times for certain things it means I can at least try to keep going.

Why am I yammering on like this? Well, right now there 8, yes 8 books to be edited and the end of this nano means one large fanfic project and another book so by the end of the month so there could be 9 or even 10 of them things get really pushed to the brink. Then there is the stuff with the food and then there are things coming together through some application of administrative violence.

Administrative violence is the practice of using the system against those who are being the pain in your ass and can be very useful as some days pass and people do not learn the lesson for not screwing with you. I would suggest everyone learn some administrative violence fighting technique and you will find yourself much more accepting of what cannot be changed and much more capable on the facets that can be.

So work well and stay strong.

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Disappointment In People

A lot was going on this week, and part of it made me think about how I deal with people I felt I could trust. I am not made of money right now, and on top of it, I had to get rid of some weapons-grade bullshit.

My roomie suddenly fell in love with a con man. She is two decades older than me, devout Christian type, supposedly. Well, con man has this supposed business idea he has been trying to get off the ground for a few years now. So she put in her laptop and hundreds if not thousands of dollars, only being told that her paycheck was on the way.

Well, at the behest of my roomie she stated, that a guest would be coming down to help with the business, and I don’t like this guy. Conman said he is black ops, is about 5’9, 130 lbs dripping wet and is on the phone at all times and cannot handle when he screws up, and when anyone is mad at him, he will run away like he had to change his pants after a taco night. This person came down, and she explained she would be paid by Tuesday. Thursday came with both my roommate and conman running away. The only time my roomie shows up, she says it is not her problem despite earlier helping the guest get here and working with a con artist.

While all this is going, conman insults her, brings up her kids, and is just trying to get a rise out of her and tells her, the guest, that she needs to give five things about what she did wrong. He also said to her that the apartment was his (it wasn’t), that they had money (they don’t), and that she just had to take a loan out on her boat in Michigan before she could get paid.

Things go sour because this person, who drove down to a different state with at least a five-hour drive, recognized she was scammed and after contacting my roomie wondering what was going on. She replies that it wasn’t her problem, and I exclaim that she put her name to all this. No reply, the guest is stuck in our apartment, and now she is just walking off, not caring. I talk to her outside, wondering what caused this change, and I explain conman can’t be here.

She says that she needs to find a place for him now. I ask why she needs to if he was a businessman and couldn’t get a home, and she huffs off, stating that she will need to move in with him. She tries, explaining that they were supposed to drive down to Vegas when she said they had flight tickets. The more my roommate tries to defend this, the more times their stories are getting incorrect, disappointing me.

I wish my body could be average. I wish I could work like I used to with boundless energy. Then, I would work much longer, and all this wouldn’t be a problem.

I still got to keep going, so stay strong.

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Donation vs Investment

One of the biggest things that drove me up wall when I was homeless is beggars. ( I wrote this when still homeless) Begging to me is just telling everyone you gave up and you expect others to come pick you up because life is hard. I never begged and I won’t support those that do.

“No! Really? Life is hard?“wonka

I thought it was sunshine and rainbows that gave me nerve damage. Life is and will always be hard and unfair and if someone says they will make it far then you will most likely see someone’s heart get chewed up over a small period of time.

Snark and sarcasm aside, and I use mine because it helps me not got crazy. Life will be hard to those in this situation, that is just the truth. That is a fact and you can take everything that can be learned and it will still be difficult. What will change is how you will answer the call. Responding is the only difference you are in control of and how it will effect you, and it would be smart to make it work for you and not against you.

One quote I think of comes from the Yakuza games.

“As long as I’m alive, I’m coming back for more.” Daisaku Kuze

So is there an ‘actual difference’ between what the two are when you are homeless? In my personal opinion when people ask for donations you look much different than being what I would call an investment, so yes.

Donation types are the ones you see with a sign asking for money. When people think of the stereotype of the homeless. Unwashed and wasted they are often only halfway in reality while the world spins. They do nothing, they complain, they do everything just to get by but nothing to succeed. Survival on the day to day is point one and making their own life easier. People do this when they have lost all hope and it is only when they hit rock bottom. Sometimes people will give them food and money as they sit on the sidewalk while people walk by. What gets me to be so anti-begging is that while I was in college some people would often get their rattiest clothes, beg for change, and use it at the bar while actual people who needed the help looked more invisible then ever.

Investment types are the own trying to peddle artwork, trying to sell something or maybe a service they are good at. They may not even be homeless but as there are while being homeless. In life there re donation types and investment types. What separates the two is numerous but one of the biggest is the unabashed effort they are putting in to turning their life around into becoming producing members of society or better producing members of society. Some may have jobs, some may even look homeless, some have side hustles, and plans to rise from their current post. When people like this continue to fight and learn under the weight of such pressure. It may seem harsh to say but more important then having hope is to what extent you will to defend it.

Now, something that should be stated is how everyone will have bad days. The most hopeful will turn blue for a good point. People may have to wonder how to get through such moments because all it takes is one truly bad day for everything in normal life to go off the rails.

One thing about a good portion of the the homeless is the clear failure of the ssi disability system, as I have gone over more in depth in another article here when I dissect the homeless population here.

Waiting for years so the system can try to shake you is a sad state of affairs. Disabilities cannot be hidden too well if they are physical so what is there may be easier to just take at face value.

Link – Who are the Homeless and Why SSDI is Important

Getting that money easier would allow more resources to successfully build their lives. That is enough of that if you want more on that specifically click the link above.

Let me explain a moment I had, I wish I had a twenty because I would have bought something.

One person had a real 4-d chess move and instead of standing on the small sliver of ground getting on the highway. Instead of a sign or begging like many others of the day he was creating beautiful pictures with either markers or paint pens and created some really awe inspiring work. If I can get a piece I will put it up here. This was a guy whose work could have been in any of the art shows in the city proper and looking like he had seen more worksites then anything and had spent the time learning his craft. Almost ironic was less then a block or so away on the sliver before the off ramp was the steeple of the largest Presbyterian church in the city.

Make yourself a better person and people won’t see the charity, but the investment that you made to be that better person will be its own evidence. It sounds tough but do it and you will find yourself coming back in to the society like a house of fire ready to go from the bottom and start rocketing up. Stay strong and try to be happy.

bobross meme

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Handicapped and Homeless- Prepare for Hard Mode

Warning this goes over some graphic moments, I warned you.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday.  My neck had been really acting up and trying to give it some time to rest I decided to lay down all memorial day and it got me to thinking. After applying some Bengay just to get me to not notice the pain and after a look through of my articles I realized there wasn’t anything just what was the difference between healthy and handicapped while homeless.

Short version of that is just life is harder, there are no major benefits or charities at least in my area targeting handicapped homeless. That means a lot of them have to get the jump on everything versus other homeless that are physically healthy. For your information my body has nerve damage throughout resulting in about half my nerve function to be gone and resorting for me to walk with a cane. It didn’t matter when I tried to get help. Everyone had some one else they would rather help out more.

Dental, if you could get on state insurance and manage it, well you have clinics deny you as the Virginia Garcia Clinic in Cornelius denied me because they needed to take…

“Women, mothers and family are allowed to come in as customers at this time, unfortunately we are not taking any men.”

When my teeth broke, for various reasons, that meant I had to pull pieces out and the only way that could be done was the pair of pliers on my multi tool.

ozrk trail

This is the model of mine, an ozark trail multi tool, could be better but as served me well.

Trying to get help for housing I had gone to one charity that during my meeting I had passed out and had to be removed via ambulance. Keeping their eye on the ball they preceded to leave the paperwork on a desk for two weeks before sending it back and saying after they had stamped it, that I had never done it specifically that I could not be verified and needed a letter fro ma vocational rehab counselor. That letter was the first page of what was sent back You know it is bad when even a Vocational Rehab counselor was calling it bullshit when she is trying to be the calm presence.

Disability, something that is supposed to be there for people who meet the requirements had been so stymied in the area that the first meeting with a full breakdown from a neurologist at a specializing hospital, and a head of ER backed with other nurses, counselors, and another federal board looked at it saying clearly disabled. Meanwhile, SSDI ruling came for me last time and said I could go in to production. This is despite passing out at times, low blood pressure, can’t feel most of your fingers and some days different pieces of your body feeling like its tazed or on fire.

I have heard this from thousands of others and the disability I asked Senator Ron Wyden and he did not have an answer. People afterwards shook my hand and thanked me for those who had issues and who died waiting. The senator had no answer, but we did get a picture together, and if you check my instagram, you will find it, lost some fat since then bulked up a little, less facial hair, but it is still me.

When you are handicapped and homeless prepare to fight against the world. Work to show them of what a homeless person can do. Through the process you will find your mettle as well as your ability to continue.

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