Sitting in the Police Department after being arrested again, I lost count how many times it has been, my things just dumped in a couple bags, so many things weren’t included; important documents I had downstairs in the kitchen along with so many other things cops didn’t include—my boots! all the other things that I just bought; flowers for the porch, my new chair and other things I’m too tired to remember right now. I’ve been crying since I was taken out in handcuffs after they kicked in my bedroom door upstairs.
It’s 11pm and I have nowhere to go. “Call DSS they quipped,” as the other officer remarked “is this all the junk” as he looked in the closet. Once again, I felt shame and degraded, mumbling and pleading about pursuing the property legally. I had been resting and was still groggy after all the violence the past week. I had gone downstairs to try and fix the sliding glass door that now wouldn’t lock. I had checked them all and they were fine and now some were broken. The lights went on and they came in the door as I had also gone out the front trying to make sure everything was locked up after being traumatized over the way the attic was.
“The Bank owns the property your trespassing in and we can’t reach them now, so your not allowed to go back there,” the officer said. I explained once again I was talking with “Mortgage Services,” the contact for the Abandoned and Vacant house about acquiring it and had every intention of pursuing things legally. I even had a key, but it didn’t matter. Once again I’m on the street with nothing and no place to go. The pain is once again unbearable to have started to love another “home,” and to believe things would be okay only to have it all ripped apart again. I had been applying for jobs, going to the gym again and having some normalcy and routine in my life, but it’s all gone again.
There is an old calendar as I sit at this desk writing, a little dog on an old November 2020 month. I was in a Super 8 then after cops arrested me and jailed me renting a room after being assaulted numerous times. I won’t ever “ rent a room” again. I almost didn’t make it out of there alive. It’s hard to write, but I needed to charge my iPhone and my anxiety is back. I have been drained lately trying once again to deal with all the attacks. McDonalds is nothing like it used to be. After a few gangs of kids attacked me calling me a “homeless bitch!” Some are connected to the men throwing $20s at me when I was sleeping on the porch. I at first thought they were helping me, but it turned out they were calling me a “Prostitute” and that’s what a blowjob cost, I learned later meeting one of the girls I had been jailed with that was “selling herself,” to buy crack. She was “taking responsibility,” she said instead of like some of the others that were stealing.
My suitcase full of stuff had been stolen and I respected that she wasn’t stealing, but I felt bad for her. I saw her a number of times, but then she was gone. I saw her the last time leave with someone and I hope she is okay. She had lost so much weight, I kept trying to give her food, but she would laugh and tell me to stop forcing hard rolls on her. They told me someone had OD’d and I hope it wasn’t her. They said she had been using quite a bit, but I don’t really know. I do know she was too thin and I worried. I worried about myself too. I wasn’t doing that well either. Sleeping on the porch was awful and when she left they started making fun of me using the Public Restrooms; saying things like I smelled and they didn’t want to go in after me. I always made sure to clean whatever I used as best as I could, but mostly it was just to humiliate me. I was often scared about finding a place to go to the bathroom.
I remember in school the girls would bang on the doors or look under the stall, I often had a hard time going. Growing up it was the same. I remember telling my ex-husband how important it was to me having a nice, clean, private bathroom. I never minded I was the one to clean it all the time at home and at our Lakehouse. It was so nice to have a bathroom recently again, even if I was flushing the toilet with rainwater. I sit here crying thinking about how difficult it is to do such simple things with no home. Things like brushing your teeth or just washing up a bit. It had been 4 months since I had a shower, but the last 2 months I had been so grateful to walk to the gym and take one there. I was starting to feel like the nightmare of the last 5 years since I was violently removed from my 20yr home was over, but the hell continues.
I can’t believe this is happening again. My stomach is in knots trying to figure out a place to sleep now. “You can sleep in the lobby,” the cops said, but then what I thought? “Well,” one said, sarcastically, how can you buy a house with no money? When he berated me after I said I had no money when he told me “don’t you have some place to go?” How can you remove someone from a place their living in, most of their stuff stolen, pay first, last, and security and expense of moving, then berate them with contempt about having no place to go? I know some people have family, but Domestic Violence prevents that for me now after learning my family was involved in this and my mother slept or had been sleeping with my ex-husband. I also have had no time, stability or money to pursue friends and after being so isolated in my marriage, all the friends we supposedly had were part of this from the beginning. My 20yr marriage had been setup from the start and me having no friends had been part of it; including being shocked to learn my family was involved and deliberately started fights.
I feel dizzy and sick and want to go home. Home to the place I had started to love. The “Abandoned house” nobody wanted, wouldn’t the “Bank” that supposedly owned it want someone to buy it and fix it up? I had just started to feel some peace before the hell of this week thinking with the eviction moratorium on that I had a place to stay for Winter and could pursue it legally—that I had some time. It was coming along nicely as I spent time cleaning, fixing, and salvaging what I could.
I remember sitting in this very same spot 5yrs ago after I was arrested, shocked I was not allowed to go back into a home I worked on 20yrs and my ex-husband didn’t want—he recently sold it, this past Christmas when I was in Maine. I came back here pleading with his brother who was the Realtor who sold it to buy it, but he hung up on me! The other agents told me he wasn’t going to “accept offers from me!” I was once again in shock, if he didn’t want it why couldn’t I buy it and live in it? I came home to “Peacefully Protest,” and spent 4 months on an another abandoned house then it got so cold I went to another one. They both seemed fine and the second one had nice apartments next door, but I was locked out again and then I was being threatened to be raped. Finding the Abandoned House I was in now was a blessing and I thought I could fix up and live in. After my credit was destroyed deliberately, buying a regular house without good credit or a job is next to impossible. I only have 1yr left of the small alimony and after all the evictions my savings is gone. I can’t get a job here, I never really could. Part of this whole thing is to make me look, “incompetent,” which I suppose now they have finally done.
I’m sorry the news isn’t better, I had so hoped to have good news for Christmas, it had always been a favorite and I had recently gone to church, but I guess things are still not good for me with God. I pray each day this horror ends as I pray for all of us suffering in these dark times. I hope your finding some peace and have a home. We all should have one, no one should be put on the street. I will continue as long as I can speaking about this horribleness inflicted on people, especially women alone for as long as God allows me to—may God keep you all well.
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