A Meditation on Moving

 

I moved to Charlotte from Davidson to help end homelessness, which is fundamentally done by increasing affordable housing stock. In doing so, I moved into one of the rare affordable housing units in this city. Before I moved in, I sometimes imagined who would live in my apartment if it wasn’t me. They were in dire need, sometimes chronically ill, usually with a visible disability or a newborn baby. My $1300 a month rent split between two people sounded extremely affordable. Everyone told me so. I thought it might be affordable enough for those I see leaving the shelter in the early morning to go to work.

What I quickly discovered was that people teetering on homelessness could not afford to move into my apartment, despite it being the cheapest in the area on Apartments.com.

First, I spent $50 applying to my apartment. I needed someone to cosign for my apartment because I don’t have a rental history. What sets me apart is a cosigner, one phone call away (thanks, mom). Because of my lack of rental history and low income, my landlord also required double the normal security deposit as a token of my loyalty: $2,600. My landlord and I had four long conversations about the fact that I wouldn’t make enough money to live there, despite the fact I was going to be working full time at Roof Above. My landlord was being thoughtful, but I was terrified. If I was denied from this apartment, all the other options were even more expensive. When I was approved, I had to move in a month before my first paycheck.

It turns out, U-Hauls are pricey, too. I have a lot of clothes, but little furniture, so I had to obtain furniture, which I soon found out was, shocker, also a lot of money.

I found a mattress and a bedframe a block from my apartment and dragged it home. I got a free couch and a wooden bench. I scoured the road for free stuff, once pulling over trying to pick up a perfectly good TV stand. It was the bench of a bus stop.

It feels foolish to call myself low income, as I sit at an overpriced coffee shop, sipping from an eight-dollar paper cup, typing what I know to say from my brain refined by my overpriced education. But in practice, I have no money. Collectively, it cost $5,000 for me to move. I take home a lot less than that a month. I now work full time, but I am not on track to make that money back soon. My family lives states away. If my apartment was untenable to live in, if there was a natural disaster, if I had a medical emergency, if I was evicted due to a major unexpected expense, I would be homeless.

I have had every advantage in life, including a great education. Part of my advantage is that in every step of my moving journey, I was able to meet the hardships with the shock and horror of the first time. But I have one disadvantage: I am young in this moment, where we have a housing shortage and a punishing job market. The proximity of homelessness for young people today is an unsettling, daily truth.