Stuck in an SRO

For the past year I've been living in an SRO in Chinatown which I found off Craigslist. 

At the time I was homeless and staying with my grandparents who were in a residential living facility but I had overstayed my welcome on the 14 day limit and was desperate to find a place after my other relative told me to leave due to their household problems so I had no place to go.

I was debating between finding a room with a roommate who could be potentially dangerous... because of past problems I had I was very mistrustful of living with a stranger. But then I found a place on Craigslist in Chinatown and decided to check it out. 

In the end it was a good decision. Being in the downtown area helped my chances of employment and soon after I got a well-paying job, something I was never allowed to have as a single unmarried woman without rich parents in a small rural college town. San Francisco held many opportunities for me as a woman though still much less than a man. 

To my surprise I was accepted in the SRO via many emails frantically sent over the smartphone. 

But this new place held many challenges.

It would be the first time living in the city on my own amd with so many strange people around me. It wasn't the language that challenged me, it was the culture of generations of people, of immigrants living on the margins. 

There is poverty everywhere. Not just homeless but residents struggling to get by. There are many societies here, Christian and Chinese to help people with food and housing. 

At this SRO though it was cheap for me, there is no private bathroom but a shared Woman's and Men's bathroom (which isn't always clean). There is a communal kitched but only has a stove, no fridge or other appliances.

It was a huge shock to me. I was used to the good life, having my own apartment with private bath and at the time, a car that I had to give up to move to SF. Only the threat of being homeless scared me into accepting this new situation. I could not afford anything else. 

All my stuff is in storage along with my grandparent's stuff. I got stuck with everything. There is no room in my 10 x 10 room with small closet. I will never again have room for a bed as I've been sleeping on an air mattress for close to two years now. I will never again have room for my rocking chair which I used to sit in for hours while listening to music or watching movies. 

Eating is a major challenge. Eight months later after moving in I finally bought a fridge from Target, having to take a cab to deliver it to my place. I also have Celiac Disease and Safeway got rid of all the gluten-free food I used to eat: chocolate muffins, soup, bread, sweet loaf cake. Gluten-free food is terribly expensive and costs five times more than regular food. For a small loaf of bread I pay $5.99. I do not cook food in my room but use a hot water pot and rareley a rice cooker. I have lived like this for over a year. My weight went down ten pounds at one time. 

Getting sick is also a problem. Though there are plenty of markets and drug-stores open I hardly feel like going out. Climbing two flights of stairs every time for the bathroom wears me out as does climbing three flights of stairs to get to my room as the elevator is just as difficult and breaks all the time. Many old people were stranded in my building when it took two weeks to repair it. 

Noise is a bad factor here. The neighbors make a ruckus with their yelling, banging on walls and ceiling until 3 am. The alleyway cleaners come around past midnight to spray and their machine is horribly loud. Then comes the street cleaner at 2 am. It's a miracle I get to sleep at all.

Also... bad smells. I have no idea what people cook here or what goes on but there is a terrible stench at times along with the pot smokers off the fire escape and the guy below me who is always smoking pot. Everyone ignores the non-smoking law here.

Bathing is hard. The showers are dirty and the old people wash their piss buckets in them. I had to use the Men's shower because there are two stalls to shower in and all the doors are papered for privacy. I also had to use their toilets when the Woman's stall was full. You get used to not having any modesty pretty quickly. Though lateley this has been a depressing experience for me and I opt to go to the YMCA instead. There is one in Chinatown and another at Embarcadero which I take the bus to. I got a membership as soon as I moved at the SRO and it has been a lifesaver. The only problem is that it's not open late.

Keeping up appearances. I don't like telling people where I live because it reeks of poverty. I am sure many second dates were canceled because I had told them where I lived. It's a fact of life that you will be hated because you are poor. I have a good job but I must keep up appearences so that no one knows I'm poor. It's hard when everyone is buying new clothes everyday and shopping all the time. I am the only one who can't afford anything. I prefer to spend money on food which is a luxury for me. I have no support other than the money I had saved since childhood. Since my grandparent's died, I haven't had any outside support. I have to rely on myself to survive.

I don't hear of many single woman like myself living in an SRO without kids. Mostly there are men who move here. It's hard to explain how much this hurts me to lose almost everything in my life and be threatened with homelessness. I can never tell people how little I have or why it's so hard for me to do normal things like: eat, shower, get to work on time. People who have everything never understand what it's like to have nothing. I try not to be bitter.

A lot of my friends have been homeless. Couch surfing is the new norm. Living in a trailer or car on someone's property is the American Way now... so is struggling. No matter how hard you work you will never get by.

I am stuck in an SRO. I am afraid to move because I just paid off my lease and there is rent control here. Even Oakland is too expensive and I have no car to move to the East Bay. With my job, I don't want to lose the convenient location and it's close to many activities I love in the city where I don't need a car.

My quality of living has been drastically altered and I have to accept this. It's only when I compare myself to others that I feel pain because I don't have what they have. Though at times I feel I have much more freedom than they ever could. Somehow I have to be okay with this.

So I Voted, So What?

Well, today I voted and I have to say it wasn't very eventful though I'm glad I remembered to vote because I almost missed it.

There was very little advertising on where to vote and onlt a tiny little sign with a tiny little arrow pointing to where I voted last year was the only sign around which showed me where to vote.

There had been a mix-up previously due to my semi-homeless status on whether or not I could vote so I went online and accidentally clicked permanent vote-by-mail status and was not able to correct it though I had called the voter Elections office many times in San Francisco I was unable to go there in person because I work full time.

I was really looking forward to this election since it would be my first time voting in the primaries as a no party preference.

There was tons of media coverage about Hillary vs Bernie vs. Trump but very little coverage about the San Francisco elections or even the state elections concerning proposition 50 which threatens to suspend state senators without pay. I have to admit I didn't even know about this proposition until I heard it on National Public Radio with the NPR app on my new phone.

So when I got to the polling place today I knew next to nothing about what would be on the ballot besides a brief encounter online with a sample ballot, that was all I knew about what would be on there. I was woefully unprepared for the slew of measures that San Francisco is trying to pass. One which included a measure to investigate police officers in any police officer shooting that occurred. Again, I didn't know this until I listened to it on NPR.

Also due to my voting mishap with the vote by mail ballot, I had to fill out a provisional ballot which had to go in a separate box which is supposedly counted but they have to double-check to make sure I'm not committing voter fraud.

I was standing at my little voting booth trying to figure out what the heck I was voting on while listening to old ladies chattering and chattering on and making fun of the younger volunteer, while I was trying to figure out who's running for what and what's doing what on the voting ballot.

Needless to say it was a miserable experience and I declined the voting sticker you get after you vote. I felt dejected and useless and wondered what the heck I was voting for in this country.

I do wonder about the presidential elections and what's going to happen since the Democrat vote is split by Bernie and Hillary as I would hate to see another rehash of the Nader vs. Gore scenario which led George "Dubbya" Bush to the presidential office. I've seen enough potential destruction already to know what happens when a rich guy hits the presidential office with no regard to the people or the media. I am very suspicious of any presidential candidate who hates the media as much as Trump does.

If worst comes to worst as it did with Bush, I will have to move to Canada, possibly British Columbia or perhaps Denmark where at least there, they are content.