Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

As you know I’m in the middle of a divorce. Contentious, one might say. It has been very rough. So many legal questions. We have been together since 2003, lived together since 2005, and domestic partners since 2006. We married in 2021. So its a 2.5 year marriage and a 16 year partnership, a 18.5 year relationship.

For now, we co-habitate, reasonably well in the home we’ve shared for 20 years minus the six months I was homeless.

As a social worker, I am pretty familiar with programs of the social safety net. My personal income from SSDI is $1500. That’s all I’d have from a 2.5 year divorce. $1500 to live on. My income makes up 20% of the household income.

So I think about housing. The wait list for City and County public housing is 1 year and 8 months after getting on the list – they accept applications for the wait list during short periods of time.  I cannot apply for these or any other social programs as a married person with a married person’s income – I have to wait until the divorce is finalized and my legal income goes down to $18,000 or so.

The average rent in Pittsburgh is $1199 for a studio to $1400 for a one-bedroom. Obviously, I cannot afford that even with one roommate. And can’t have a roommate in a studio or one bedroom. A two bedroom averages $1640. It is recommended we spend 30% income on rent so that’s about $500. Including utilities. There’s no way I could afford to rent in Pittsburgh

I would either have to rent from a slum lord or move very far away from the City and probably find deplorable housing anyway. Also leaving my support system behind.

Even if I could afford first and last months deposit etc most landlords will not rent if SSDI is your primary source of income . I would have to get a cosignor. My parents are dead, my brother isn’t speaking to me. So  I’dhave to humiliate myself by asking a friend to do that, like I’m a kid just out of college.

So even if I did apply for public housing, I’d have to keep myself somewhere until I could apply and then while I wait.

So I honestly don’t  know what I would do. Impose on friends? Not ideal and not long term. No one has a carriage house or apartment above the garage. 

1407 W North Avenue is on and off the market for about $250,00. Same with 1409. But obviously that’s well beyond my reach even if I had roommates. Our neighbor is fixing up the cutest 4 room bungalow next door to the cat colony, but I doubt he would rent to me. There’s an abandoned house also near the colony, but there are no programs to fix it up.

Who can afford that? You are all very generous to me, but you can’t spend $200,000 to buy me a house even if you all teamed up. I could never make a “rent to own” payment that’s viable. Nor do I really want to own. But maybe there is a solution in there. “Middle-aged ladies screwed by the system need apply.”

That wasn’t the plan. We were going to sell this house after retirement and find a nice condo or small house that would be suitable as we age. Oakmont, Belleview were on our list.

So “explore” my options is a misnomer. This is my professional field so I knew this two years ago. Yet, over and over again people tried to be helpful by suggesting public housing, food stamps/SNAP, and so forth.

Any short to medium term homeless program has a waiting list. So where would I spend my 1 year ad 8 months plus the time it takes to  get on the waiting list. 

If you are angry about people living in tents and sleeping on Downtown sidewalks, think twice.  That feels like it could be me. I’m sure someone would swoop in to help if it came to that, but its not fair to expect friends to do that again. And they have no spare bedrooms even if I had rent money. It isn’t fair to expect anyone to provide me with the housing I deserve, housing I earned.

There’s not enough affordable housing.

I invested most of what I had in this household. I didn’t save because I was acutely aware of my meager contributions. Had I saved a simple $100 each month since my disability, I’d have $18,000 now. Not a lot and probably all invested in legal fees. But I would have been trying to take care of myself.

CAVEAT – I spent a portion of my monthly stipend on my own expenses – the blog expenses, getting my hair done, clothes, coats, pet stuff. I did that because I trusted we were financially in this together – a few times, my bank account threatened to go over and she gave me a few hundred dollars to avoid that. When she was anxious about some debt, I cashed in a Roth IRA – five months before this happened – and gave her several thousand dollars to help.I never thought her money was mine, but I did think we were in this together and we each did our best with what we had.

All of this will just get worse in a year’s time as the economy tightens, Medicaid disappears, etc. I’m on Medicare which some of my providers do not accept. I’ll get a pittance of food stamps, like $30. I’ll have no car, the buses are being cut, One very bad month and what will I do?

So while I welcome suggestions, it is important to understand the barriers. I can’t spend $500 on rent. I can’t sign a lease. I have no savings. I have no car long term. The  programs are not reasonable options. No one has a room for me to rent. And I can’t apply for anything until I’m divorced.

There will be other losses that effect more than me – the blog will end, Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities, the Fort Faulsey cat colony, I could not sustain any of them.

I didn’t get into it, but I know I’ll have to leave my cats behind. I can’t even think about that.

My friends and support network assure me they won’t let me be homeless. But what could that look like? And why should they? I didn’t give them all of my income for over a decade and part of my income for another decade.

So I thought about housing options, immediately felt more terrible, and realize how unfair life is. My belief that we had built a comfortable life, not excessive but nice, was swept away. It is fragile and fraught with decisions you can’t control.

The impending dissolution of marriage equality will throw many other LGBTQ+ families into similar straights.

My lawyer and I have crafted a fair compromise. Will we end up near that? Not based on the law that disregards domestic partnerships. But we are trying to change that law for everyone’s benefit.

I’m not being facetious when I say I could end up in a tent on a sidewalk or living in a squatters situation. Or conditions that are unsafe for my mental health. Do I deserve that?

No. I didn’t ask for any of this. I went on a romantic vacation three weeks before these events unfolded – I even bought champagne and strawberries. I was struggling with a defamation lawsuit over the Protect Trans Kids signs, I was sickened by my medications, I was told my cats were being removed, I was disparaged by ex-laws, I lost contact with my niece and nephew, I’m terrified of the police, It took 18 months of therapy so I could use a ride share. I visit a food pantry.

I didn’t ask for or expect any of this. But divorce is no fault in Pennsylvania so none of what I expected or anticipated matters. No promise matters. Only legal paperwork matters.

My advice to you is that if you are in domestic partnership or were before you married, go see a lawyer and have post-nuptial agreement drawn up. Protect yourself because love won’t protect you.

Same sex couples who were in domestic partnerships, formal or not, before 2014 must go to a lawyer and fill out the 9 essential documents. If you have children please complete the second parent adoption process as soon as possible.

I didn’t see this coming. I doubt you would, too. Take of yourself legally now.

Hence, I need your help for the legal efforts to secure me a fair settlement among the many other legal battles.

• GoFundMe bit.ly/HelpLGBTQBlogger
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• Zelle sitnsncoop@gmail.com

I shared this and was told “It raises some very important issues, not just for the queer community but for any economically dependent/disadvantaged person.”

All my memories … I don’t know how I’ll say goodbye. It isn’t the house, the building. It is 20 years of my life, my love, and my heart How do you replace that?

Being dragged out in handcuffs by police under the pretext of a 302 that I didn’t need was horrible. I cannot imagine walking out on my own and never coming back.