From time to time I engage in a particular spiritual exercise that I find very helpful. I try to think of one hundred things to thank God for, and I do. During this blog's salad days I actually wrote a post, listing one hundred things I had to be thankful for. It is worth it, especially if you are having a particularly miserable day.
High on my list is my little apartment. I do not live in luxury accommodations. My unit is a tiny bachelor, basically one room with a galley kitchen, bathroom and small closet. From the firth floor I am rapidly losing my view of the sky to the menacing condo tower going up a block away. Generally my place is quiet and I feel safe here. It is a refuge. The rent is right, too. Only thirty percent of my monthly income. It is not without its inconveniences. The neighbourhood is dreadful. A particularly ugly area of downtown. But my apartment faces from the back of the building so I don't get a lot of noise, though garbage and delivery trucks can be a nuisance.
My building is managed by a Christian nonprofit and they seem dedicated to the tenants' wellbeing, even if their management style tends towards neo-feudalism. I simply stay out of their way and live my life while maintaining usually positive and warm communications with my neighbours. On the whole, even if it is not an ideal living situation, I am able to live in the most expensive city on earth (almost), decently housed while earning a low wage. I am still able to do things, like international travel, because of my rent arrangements. This is also for me a wonderful little revenge on our government welfare system. They were determined to save a lousy $510 a month so they were determined to get me out of the system. I found employment with our local health care provider, which is on the government's payroll, as well as getting into government subsidized housing. With the housing subsidy and my monthly paycheck combined I reckon that now I am costing the taxpayer nearly four times as much as I did when I was on welfare. I am still laughing all the way to the bank!
I am grateful that I can still live in this beautiful city I have called home all my life, while many others who earn more than I do have to move on and start over in less expensive communities. I am also grateful for the relative ease with which I came to live here. The city housing support advocate, Judy Graves and I simply kept running into each other on the street and on public transit back in 2001 when I was living in unsafe housing. She befriended me and got me on several wait lists for housing. Within a year I was moving into my first subsidized apartment, followed by the place where I am living now, four months later, because it is safer and quieter here. I have no question that God was providing for me, after years of living in inadequate housing.
In my little apartment, I prepare delicious nutritious meals, eat, sleep, rest, read, write this blog, paint, blog, write and read emails, visit with friends occasionally, pray, think, shed the weight of my day, and gather fresh inspiration for tomorrow. Here I can grow old gracefully as I approach my retirement years. There was a time when this kind of living arrangement might be a cause of embarrassment. Now that this city is affordable only to the very wealthy or the very resourceful it is now with gratitude that I tell others about why I am still able to live here. It is still of concern that I have no other choices of where to live but I really could do a lot worse than where I am now.
I have survivor guilt. With our ongoing crisis of affordable housing and homelessness we are all surrounded by the human casualties, the collateral damage of very stupidly conceived and purposed economic and social policies that have fattened the economy while widening the gap between rich and poor. I have been rescued from this nightmare of homelessness. Now, in my safe, clean, and comfortable little apartment I can at least write and advocate on behalf of those who don't have a voice and to continue pressure our elected officials to get their heads out of their ass and get to work on behalf of their most vulnerable constituents.
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