with inflation over 650, i should be looking at units in the 700-725 range.

if i were still on marion, i'd be paying a little less than 700 all inclusive right now. maybe closer to 690. i'd expect to be paying around $710-720 in december. so, that's what i should be looking at - under $725.

but, if i get a big enough settlement, i can interpret it as paying the inflation, which is a real thing.

so, i'm currently looking at units under $799, including utilities. if i get a few thousand dollars, i can start looking at units pushing $899 - but they'd better be perfect, kind of thing

if i do not win a settlement, my hard max is going to be $799. period.

i filed at the end of april.

it's july 27th.

i need the ruling before i can start looking at more pricey units and/or start to plan to move out of town.

right now, it doesn't seem like the tardiness of the ruling is fucking me over for august 1st.

i might find out later that it did.

i will say, however, that if this process were not so slow, i may have found something for july 1st - there was a very good option that i had to skip because i couldn't secure last month's rent.

i currently have no showings planned this weekend.

no ruling.

i think it's clear that i'm stuck here until september 1st. at least.

https://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/refugees-looking-for-homes-flock-to-windsor-to-find-a-housing-crisis/wcm/ef021889-815a-49ad-bb41-e5b4aa1de696

again: i don't want to own a house, or live in a posh hotel.

i want cheap as fuck rent in a falling down condemned shithole.

my only stipulation is no smoking.

shovels.

in.

the.

ground.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/04/10/affordable-housing-crisis-canada_a_23407878/

will the government put the increasing number of canadians that can't find shelter in hotels, too?

well?

and, is it a crisis or a challenge?

well, it's certainly a crisis if you're trying to find somewhere to live, and can't, because all of the housing in your price range is taken.

it's a certainly a crisis if you end up in a shelter as a result.

but, listen.

my primary argument in favour of the refugees - despite my better judgement - was that it would lead to an increase in socialized housing.

we can see the necessity of this, now.

the real question is why they haven't already started building.

did they think they were going to move the refugees into the empty million dollar condos in downtown toronto?

or that all of the people on odsp were going to all of a sudden become astronauts, after all?

this used to be the smart party - they used to do these kinds of calculations ahead of time.

i mean, this is what i said from the start: if we have 25,000 empty houses for these 25,000 refugees, why do we have people in shelters?

it turns out that we didn't have 25,000 empty houses, after all.

and, today, we have refugees in hotels, and overflowing shelters - because we've created a crisis in low-income housing by taking in too many people too fast.

these are the facts: the infrastructure is lacking.

we can fix this by building.

but we have to actually do that.

and, they should have fucking known that from the start.

it's not a difficult equation.

if you're going to let in x refugee families, you need to build x low rent rental units for them. at least.

if you don't do that, you're going to get social unrest, as low income canadians fight with refugees over dwindling access to cheap housing.

i understand that your typical upper class liberal has no idea, but the actual politicians need to figure this out and get to fixing it - or deal with the consequences.

again: what we need are shovels in the ground, not liberals and conservatives pointing fingers at each other over identity politics.

and, we really don't have the infrastructure in place.

there is a difference between saying "you're not welcome here" and saying "we do not have the infrastructure in place to accommodate your request".

i'm not happy about letting in religious people, don't misunderstand me. there's lots of people i'd look in the eye and tell to take a hike.

but, that's only half the crisis in front of us. and, even if 100% of these people are wonderful egalitarian leftists, there's still nowhere to put them at the moment...

people both inside and outside of canada need to get their heads around this point: we honestly quite literally don't have anywhere to put these people.

we're not "full". we have one of the lowest population densities in the world. there's lots of space.

but, we don't currently have the infrastructure in place to accommodate thousands of refugees.

we just don't.

and, that's what trudeau needs to get on twitter and say.

so, are the border crossers in quebec illegal?

well, it depends on whether the claims get processed in their favour or not. if they succeed in getting status, they're not illegal - they're refugees. if they fail in getting status, they're illegal aliens under the law.

i think that what i'm demonstrating is that the question isn't really useful..

listen: i don't really believe in borders. i don't like deporting people. and, i do believe that nobody is illegal. but, you have to weigh these considerations very carefully with real world issues around vacancy rates and the cost and availability of low income housing.

in 2013, cheap housing was plentiful in windsor. i talked to a manager at the local slumlord monopoly today that claimed this city now has a 1% vacancy rate. that is probably not exactly right, in that it doesn't take into consideration the dilapidated housing that is currently off the market.

but the answer to "what has changed in the last five years?" is "we let in thousands of refugees.".

in 2014, we elected an openly gay premier, and nobody cared that she was gay. we recently elected a premier that makes george w. bush look intelligent, on a promise to reverse a sex ed curriculum because it acknowledges that queer people exist. what the fuck happened? we let in way too many people with regressive social policy outlooks and low levels of education.

it's not a question of legality, it's a question of sustainability. and, that is the idea we need to be getting across.

if we had infinite space, or a post-propertarian economy, i wouldn't even want a border to exist at all.

but, we live in a capitalist reality. property rights are not ideologically enforced here, but they do exist. our vacancy rates are very low. our shelters are at capacity. we have the ability to build, but we need time to do it.

we need to slow this down. and, we need time to assimilate what we've allowed in.

you may think it seems strange to call somebody selfish for buying his eldest child a car.

but, he wasn't buying me a car - he was buying himself a car.

i don't know why my father had this obsession with me owning a vehicle.

he put a lot of hubris into owning a car. for him, it was a big part of going to work everyday. i'd make the argument that he worked his whole life for no gain - that he largely wasted his life on unrewarding labour, and in the end accomplished nothing of value. but, in his mind, car ownership was a big part of the reason he went to work every day. and, if you asked him what he accomplished in life, he would say "i owned my own car".

it seems trivial, to me. almost stupid, really.

but, he found my rejection almost hurtful. this is something he never understood. he'd fix up my bike for me every year, and he'd bite his tongue, but it ate at him inside: why didn't his kid want a car?

he seemed to think i'd "grow out of it", without fully grasping the depth of my commitment to fighting climate change, and my aversion to buying oil and funding all of the hell that buying oil funds.

and, i actually think the position he took was extremely selfish. he had the ability to pay my loan down; instead, he insisted on buying me a car, and pouted like a child when i told him i didn't want it and would rather have my debt cleared off, like the responsible young adult that i was.

he's been dead for years, and i still don't want a car - and still have a large student loan.

i'll state it again: i do not have a driver's license.

i do not have a driver's license because i want to keep my carbon footprint low.

that is a decision that i made many years ago, and hold to as a guiding moral principle.

i'm not flexible on this point.

my father tried to give me a car for free once, and i told him i didn't want it and asked him to pay off my student loan, instead.

he didn't pay off the loan, and, i never accepted the car.

i was told it would sit until i wanted it, but he must have eventually traded it in or something. i don't know what happened to it...

actually, i'd probably try to sell it, and use the money to pay off my student loan.

if you gave me a car for free, and bought me insurance, and paid for the gas, and paid my way through driving school, and forced me to go through court order.....in the end, i'd just leave it on the side of the curb.

i legitimately don't want one.

if you were to give me $800 for rent and $600 for 'basic needs', it would be the 'basic needs' part that i wouldn't know what to do with....

frankly, i'd probably be looking for something in the $1000+ range.

but, i'm mobile - i can walk. you know? if i needed to pay for cabs or something.....

what i'm saying is this: if they're going to give us $1151 for disability, they should earmark $800 for shelter and $351 for basic needs.

that would end all of these dumb arguments.

and, the apartment has disappeared again.

i spoke with the people at the management company, and they told me a likely story. at the least, it's no longer available, so i can't do much about it.

i kind of expect it to pop back up again after august 1st.

there's a very high chance that i'll still be here. but, i guess i'm better off if i find something better, right....

it's very frustrating, because i don't know how somebody got in to see it. i tried. several times.

*sigh*.

i have lots of time, still...

i have until october.

just give me what i want and get this over with.

if i show up on sandwich street, and i get the slightest hint of smoke, i'm walking out.

slightest.

hint.

gone...

i have not seen pictures of this unit, which is not very confidence-building. the pictures i've seen suggest the unit is too small; as it is, i don't know how big it is. and, it's consequently very low probability.

i need to be clear.

i do not want a challenging job. 

if forced to do it - and i mean that, literally - i would want to stumble in on no sleep, and sleepwalk through the most boring and repetitive task i can imagine, so i can go home and work on something i care about.

i do not want a sexual partner.

sex takes a lot of energy, regardless of how you're approaching it. and, it's really dramatically overrated. i have better things to do than focus tremendous resources on a twenty second high. when it comes down to it, cocaine is probably more efficient, resource-wise.

i do not want to have children.

children are expensive, time-consuming, stressful and leave you with little material benefits, in the end. i would be more likely to kill myself than accept any sort of parental responsibilities - as i would consider it a death sentence, anyways.

again: if i were to get something for $489/month, this is what my budget would look like:

rent: $489
food: $200
internet: $28
estrogen: $21
============
738

my income is $1215.

1215 - 738  = 477.

i do not have a driver's license, have never driven a car before and do not want to purchase an automobile. sorry.

i do not have any friends, do not speak to my family, do not have a job and do not want to purchase a cell phone plan. sorry.

i have not watched tv since the 90s, and have never paid for cable, not even when i had a full-time job in the 00s. i do not want to pay for cable, now. sorry.

i am exceedingly health-conscious, would prefer to make my own meals and simply don't like sitting in restaurants. that is, if we ignore the absurdity of telling me to rent a room so i can eat out more. sorry.

i quit smoking in january, 2016.

i have never drank much.

i never was and do not want to become a habitual marijuana user.

so, i have absolutely no idea what you want me to spend that money on.

honestly.

i'm at a complete loss.

i want to spend it on housing - because that is what is important to me.

if you forced me to, i'd probably spend it on hair removal. honestly. that's what i would do - i'd focus on transitioning.

now, let's say i actually did have a full time minimum wage job (and i wouldn't want to work in an intellectually stimulating environment, too stressful - i would want simple drone work, so i could go home and work on something i care about without being too drained). nowadays, that's a take-away of what? $1500/month, roughly?

and, let's say i got an apartment for $750 + hydro.

this is what my budget would look like:

rent: $750
hydro: $30 [i'd lose my subsidy, but i use almost no hydro.]
internet: $28
estrogen: $100 [i'd lose my subsidy]
food: $200
================
$1108

so, i'd have $392 leftover after rent - less than i would if i had a room for $479, on disability.

i still wouldn't want a car.

i might be forced to get a phone. i don't even know how much that would cost. i'd do it pay as you go, probably. so, let's say $20/month.

i still wouldn't want cable.

i'd still rather make my own meals.

i still wouldn't smoke....hopefully. it's probably the biggest single risk factor, for me.

i still wouldn't drink.

i still wouldn't do drugs.

so, i'd still have hundreds of dollars to waste, on what? well, probably hair removal, and then what?

now, this is what my budget would look like with a $750 + hydro lease, on disability:

rent: $750
hydro: $0
food: $200
internet: $28
estrogen: $21
================
$999.

so, i have $215 leftover.

if ford cancels the hydro subsidy, it'll cost me $30/month. trivial.

and, what i do with this?

the truth is: not much.

i can do my own accounting. i can do my own budgeting. and, when i say i can afford it, i'm not blustering.

i paid $650-680 for years, and pay $700 now, and have never had problems with rent.

this is not the ritz.

it should probably be condemned, really.

but it's big. and it's cheap.

and they want somebody making good money to move in.

stupid.

if i was making the kind of money they're trying to screen for, i'd buy a fucking condo somewhere.

really.

what do you want, a lawyer to move in to your falling down unit on top of a hair salon in walkerville? get fucking real.

this is low rent housing - best suited for struggling artists and other people that require assistance to exist.

and, they're just being stupid about it.

totally fucking stupid...

at best, they'll find some kids that'll pay for it with mommy's credit card, and trash the place because they don't give a fuck. and, the idiots seem to actually want that.

i'm a perfectly good tenant.

guaranteed income.

can sign a lease tomorrow.

they're just stupid.

i NEED a non-smoking apartment that is BIG ENOUGH to store my gear.

i don't care where it is, within reason.

i don't care what it looks like inside. at all.

falling down, in need of a paint job, full of bugs - i don't care.

what i care about is the size of the unit, because i NEED the space, & the fact that it's non-smoking because i don't want to die young from second-hand smoke - & that fact that it's under $800.

living in a smoke-free environment is not a privilege. second-hand smoke is not an annoyance. every day i stay here, i increase my chances of getting cancer. if i stay here long term, i will almost certainly die of cancer. and, i can't believe that there are people alive today that don't understand that.

what i'm looking for is very hard to find.

in fact, as far as i can tell, only one acceptable unit currently exists.

yet, as far as i can tell, these people are lying to me about the situation, too.

and, if this is the way i take these slumlords down, so be it.

note to the bigots and classist assholes of the world: it's easier for everybody if you give up.

there is almost no chance that i'm going to find something else. i need this space. and, i'm not going to give up because somebody thinks a tenant should make $2000/month+ to live in dilapidated slumlord housing.

this is stupid, and we're going to fight about it until i win.