Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Is Society Ready For Our Relationship?

Hell no!

Dena and I have been together for 5 year and every time we turn around it is another obstacle. If it is fear of my service getting cut, it is finding affordable accessible house. Why would our Gov. make Dena be our sole provider for everything, think of how much stress that would but on us? It is just setting to fail before we could start to enjoy each other in our lives.

I alone use to live in HUD subsidized housing because of my limited income. It was accessible because of a walk/roll in shower. I made it even more accessible by installing a keyless lock, a push button thermostat, and remote ceiling fan/light. If they knew that we live together there we would have been kicked out. We do not want a hand out, but our Gov. should

look at the whole picture and just guidelines and income. Three years ago we moved into our current place own by Bozzuto. First it take us 7 months for them to put a walk way from the parking lot to tour porch. The only way to get it done was to get producer Susan Hadary of King Gimp involved, they put the walkway in the next week.

Our next challenge was the bathroom, it has a tub instead of a walk/roll in shower. A year after we moved here the complex had to replace the tub, because of rusty drain. Dena and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for management to but a shower in. they would only install it if we splint the cost. At the time we could not afford it, so we got another freaking tub. Being who I am, I started to go through my network and finally got connected to Baltimore Co. Office of Community Conservation. Hal that work come out for the site visit and wanted to do the project the next day. 3 months later after all of the application were done and Hal got approved on his end. The big wigs at Bozzuto said go a head with the project, but only if we restore the bathroom when we move, there is not a demand for accessible units. Can someone please explain this, on top of this our rent has gone up 4 times within the last 7 months.

Dena and I are in the process of looking for a new accessible, affordable place.

Some information to share:

http://www.accessibleproperties.net

http://www.gosection8.com/

http://www.mdhousingsearch.org/

barrierfree.org

http://www.socialserve.com/

National Accessible Apartment Clearinghouse- 1-800-421-1221 or http://www.accessibleapartments.org/website/article.asp?id=4.