The Cost of VT Living

In 2016 -2017, I spent over a year attempting to find an apartment to rent.

We were stuck, unable to escape the off grid home we’d been living in. Rent was too high, wood for heat was expensive, propane tank was expensive and things in the apartment kept breaking but weren’t getting repaired.

I started paying for repairs. My mom started paying for repairs… All so we could have heat & running water.

I attempted to move from our state twice. 1st time I even had a good job offer.

Both times, I was prevented. Any attempt to move from the location was stopped immediately, in a way I’ve never experienced before.

Services we were involved in, looking for all options for help, told me we didn’t HAVE to move out of state for a better job & apartment. Seriously. I had rented a moving truck & packed our belongings for the out of state move.

Family Services worker came & told us NOT to move.

They assured me, they were there to help us find a place we could afford in this area.

Friends & family didn’t want us to leave. They like having us here

I get it. I also knew staying here, we’d be trapped in poverty, living paycheck to paycheck.

None of their concerns should have prevented us – We couldn’t find an apartment to rent, with $2000 saved for 1st & deposit.
Apartments in this state are 1000-1500 for a 1-3 bedroom.

When we FOUND studios or a 1 bedroom at a lower price ($600-$900) I was told by ALL landlords that they wouldn’t rent to us because landlords wanted 1 person, OR a couple…. Not a mom & child.

True Story.

Then, we had the house fire, Jan 31st.

Lost everything.

Since we had been attempting to move, anything we didn’t use weekly was packed in boxes, ready to move, the moment we found a place.

We lost our belongings in a fire and they were all mostly packed in boxes, sorted & labeled. This fact upsets me more than I could possibly ever express.

Picture an internal, nonstop scream.

Immediately we tried to find that emergency housing that Family Services had suggested in Oct.

Family Services worker had suggested in Oct that we abandon our too expensive rental we had been trying to move from & go to the local homeless shelter as that would get us onto the Emergency Housing List. Family Services explained we would have to surrender our dog & cats to a shelter, in order to do this.

We didn’t. As difficult as it was to live off grid, putting my child through the experience of a homeless shelter & abandoning our pets wasn’t something we could do.

Going to a shelter would also move my child to a completely different school system.

Our dog & cats were family members.

I wouldn’t surrender my child to a shelter so I could get a better place to live….

That MAY seem like drastic jump, I assure you, it’s not.

Families during the depression would sell their children in order to keep a roof over their heads.

Guess what we found out after the fire? There IS NO Emergency Housing List in the state of VT.
That program was removed YEARS ago.

If we had followed the advice of Family Services, we would have been stuck at a homeless shelter, still unable to find a place to rent.

Not 1 service or organization helped us find a new place, find funding for a new place or recover from such an extensive, sudden and tragic loss. A House fire did not qualify us for any support or assistance.

In fact, we were disqualified from a bunch of things…. The amount of hurdles to disqualify people is insane.

House Fire isn’t a Natural Disaster.
House Fire isn’t qualified for emergency assistance.

H

House Fire isn’t a “situation” covered by BHA, Groundworks Shelter, Salvation Army, Brattleboro SEVCA, WHT.

State funding helped with partial cost of motel stay (rest was covered by us) after the fire but we had to move out every other weekend & refill out paperwork every other week. Some of the people were nice…. Others treated us poorly & made comments about us taking too long to find a place less than a month after the fire.

Veterans Association helped track down replacement military flag & dog tags.
Cost was $200+ which my son’s gym teacher at WCS paid for out of pocket.
We were SO thankful 💗

Red Cross had so many hurdles…. They worked HARD to get passed them.
$500 for replacing our clothes & their medical liaison fought our insurance to help us replace medications, inhalers & nebulizer machine. Insurance demanded we show proof of loss of medical supplies just to refill my son’s inhaler.

Red Cross also got an extension on our allowed motel days.

Usually the state allows 21 days only. Extension was for 80 days, which we did not use all of thankfully.
We FINALLY found a place in April.

Friends, Family, this community & strangers helped us recover, NOT any of the services or organizations.
WHT had an ad for open apartments. We went to talk to them since we’ve had an application in with them for a while.

WHT had the balls to tell us that while the waiting list for their apartments are 8-12 months long, people already IN their apartments get first pick.
They DID offer me a class to find out if we qualify for their home ownership program.
Taking the few hours long class DOES NOT qualify you.
It costs $25-90, sliding scale fee.

Summary? We told WHT our HOME BURNED DOWN & they asked ME for money….

Now, we have to split a place between me and my dad as both of us can no longer afford to live independently in this town anymore. Our landlord we found independently is wonderful. Better than ANY low income housing or Sec 8 landlord we’ve experienced.

My poor dad had moved into the off grid house with me in Nov, few months before it burned down.

Thank God he only lost his bedding & cookware as his big furniture was in his small storage unit. I had a room set up for him so he only lost whatever bedding or clothes were there.

My son & I, we lost EVERYTHING that wasn’t in my purse at the time.

Dog, cats, my son’s chinchilla, military flag & dog tags from Alex’s funeral, photo albums, library, my son’s entire toy, comic book, figurine & videogame collection…

Dad and I are both paycheck to paycheck, which just barely covers our bills with nothing left over for savings or emergencies.

To whomever is reading this, PLEASE take our situation & my words to heart.

Re-read them – let it marinate in your brain while you place your feet into our shoes.

Perhaps when it comes to an issue of high cost of living, we should be more suspicious of the low income landlords??

Perhaps we should be more suspicious of these services that so many people donate to & yet do NOT seem to be helping the homeless, in poverty, or in need of emergency housing…..

If we had left area, if I accepted the job, if we ignored the naysayers & family or friends who may miss our absence… Maybe things would have gone differently.

Maybe we would still have Rhiannon with us, our cats Michonne, Smudge & Chloe.

Maybe the foster momma & 2 kittens would have found their forever home.

Maybe G wouldn’t have experienced another tragic loss.

The cost, to stay in this state, was our beloved dog, cats, my son’s chinchilla and every single possession we owned .

Our beloved animal family members loss & terrible suffering will NEVER be worth G & I staying in the Vermont area.