Please Help
Video version here:
https://youtu.be/XNkln42tGbY
Greetings! I'm LeRoy, and the last few years have been very challenging for me. I've had physical, neurological, relational, and financial hardships, over and over, that eventually led to me being homeless for over two and a half years. I'm currently housed with a small temporary income from the county while my disability claim is pending. It's not much, and month to month it's difficult just to cover the basics of utilities and rent. Often, finding funds for necessities like toilet paper, soap, deodorant, etc, is a monumental task.
This week the county notified me that they're going to be lowering my monthly income (they're my ONLY income source) to 1/3 of it's current level. This won't even cover my rent and utilities.
I'm now in the position of either finding a way to bring in an income (at which point I'll lose the income from the county), or becoming homeless again.
Before I get into what I need, let me outline my limitations so that you understand the scope of the problem.
I have photosensitive epilepsy, fibromyalgia, and get sick easily and often. What this means is:
- I can't be in front of a screen for long periods of time. I have seizures. Currently I'm typing on a wireless keyboard so I don't have to stare at the screen, but this is still very limiting (and I'm typing blind, so I have to go back and edit later). On a good day I can be in front of a screen for around 20 minutes at a time, and I can do this around 3 times a day (with breaks in between). On a bad day I can't be in front of a screen at all. The warning signs (disorientation, confusion, fear, deja vu) can come very suddenly, and necessitate me immediately stopping whatever I'm doing. If I continue, I will have a tonic-clonic seizure. If it doesn't kill me, it does a significant amount of brain damage, including memory loss and increased risk of further seizures. I'm always more, permanently, limited after a full seizure, and do everything I can to avoid things that will cause them. I've incurred physical damage as a result of these seizures, including, bumps, bruises, cuts that require stitches, pulled muscles, and broken bones. As you can imagine, this is not something to be taken lightly.
- The fibromyalgia causes stiffness, soreness, quick fatigue, and significantly increased recovery times. This means I can't sit or stand in one location for very long, and my total physical activity in a day is severely limited. There are good days and bad days, but even on good days, if I overdo it, I'll likely be mostly bedridden for several days after. I do my best to limit myself to activities that are consistently sustainable, but even keeping my small apartment in order takes just about everything I have. As with the epilepsy, there are good days and bad days, and I can't predict in advance how much I'll be able to take on in a day.
- Finally, the doctors have been unable to find a cause, but I get sick very easily and often. I'm often unwell, sapped of energy, unable to get even the simplest of things done in a day (this is so frustrating).
Taken together these limitations mean I can't commit to things that require hard appointments and deadlines. I still have goals, and projects, and chores to do, but I'm able to schedule them flexibly so that I can take care of them when I'm able, and put them on pause when I don't have the ability. I can't stress to you enough how frustrating this is. Imagine being sick, and not being able to watch tv, or play video games, or scroll through your phone. The days are long, boring, and lonely.
Here's what I need to stay housed; In the short term, I could temporarily cover my basic bills on around $300/mo, but that would make the consumables (toilet paper, cleaning supplies, vitamins, quarters for laundry, etc) unaffordable. For sustainable living, to cover my basic needs, I'd need to bring in about $400/mo.
EDIT: I should also note, while it's probably obvious, I will NOT do anything illegal or immoral.
I'm not asking for money, or donations, or loans, I need to find a way to consistently EARN this money. It has to be stable, consistent, and available NOW (I don't have months or years to build this income). It can't require me to be in front of a screen for long periods of time (like video conferencing), and can't require hard deadlines and appointments. These things wouldn't be sustainable. Because I can't drive (seizures) I need to be able to do this work from home. There are times I can't sleep at all, and I'm up at 2am, it would be great to be able to make productive use of that time.
I realize this is a, seemingly, impossible request. If it were easy I wouldn't be asking for help. If my issues weren't so limiting, I wouldn't be going through the crazily-convoluted process of applying for disability (it's already been over TWO YEARS since I started the application process). If you don't have any ideas, send this out to friends, family, and internet-savvy pets, ANYONE who may have ideas, or know people who may.
To cap this off, I figure I should list some of my skills. I have a BA with majors in Theatre, and Music. After college I graduated from a conservatory, and taught music at a university for several years. Apart from my "formal" education, I'm also an A+ Certified hardware tech, and an Oracle Certified Java Programmer (OCA-8). I'm great with tech (though I'm terrible with graphic design!), love to learn and share with others what I've learned. I'm pretty organized (with my health issues, and, especially, the memory problems associated with the seizure disorder, I have to be), and am not afraid of work, I'm just very limited these days. I continue to work my musical skills (I love working with standalone hardware and new instruments), and love creating small pieces of music across genres, just for fun. I enjoy writing (though admittedly I'm not very good at it). I also continue to learn and relearn programming concepts and work on projects (recently I was learning 6502 assembly and writing software that ran on an Atari 2600. Unfortunately the last seizure zapped all of the work I'd done on that).
Before my health issues became a problem, I'd worked in retail, as a security guard, in the tech industry, and in the theatre.
Having been homeless, I know exactly where that road leads, and I DON'T want to go back. Please consider my situation, and if you can't help, please share this with others. It's a numbers game, I'm convinced that somewhere, someone has an idea to allow me to provide for my most basic needs.
If you think you've got the solution, please feel free to reach out to me: