Homeless By Choice?

Not a Criminal: The Cost of Being Sick, Poor, and Tired

I am not a criminal. I am not a character flaw. I am a person managing lifelong spinal stenosis and bipolar disorder in a system designed to wait for me to fail.

Anyone who has navigated the Social Security Administration knows that disability determination isn’t a process; it’s attrition by bureaucracy. I waited five years to be believed. Five years of proving, over and over, that my body and mind could no longer sustain traditional employment.

While I waited, the world didn't pause. Rent, copays, and prescriptions don't care about "pending" status.

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The Five-Year Void

I have not been idle. For five years, I have been on literally every housing list I could find. I have filled out the forms, updated the paperwork annually, attended the check-ins, and kept the records. I have done everything the system asks of a "responsible" applicant.

In five years, nothing has come up.

Every year, the update is the same: Keep waiting. The system assumes you have time to wait in a queue; spinal stenosis and bipolar disorder don't. When you are sick, "waiting" isn't a passive state. It is a daily struggle to stay alive long enough for a bureaucracy to notice you.

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The Three-Day Trap

The eviction on my record isn't a sign of irresponsibility. It’s a monument to a timing gap.

Dallas County policy required that every cent of my cash be depleted before assistance would kick in. They ignored the thousands in credit card debt; if it wasn’t in a checking account, it didn't count. I was forced to exhaust everything.

When the assistance finally moved, it arrived three days late.

Three days. Lincoln Property Company refused to honor the safety net because it wasn’t on their timeline. On a legal document, it reads "Non-payment." In reality, it was a collision between a slow government and an inflexible corporation. That mark on my record now lives longer than the crisis that caused it.

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The Shelter Fallacy

People say, “Just go to a shelter,” as if it’s a simple logistical shift. For someone with my diagnoses, a shelter isn’t a resource—it’s a health risk.

• Spinal Stenosis doesn’t follow a curfew. Chronic nerve compression and radiating pain don’t care about "daytime displacement" rules. When the nerves scream, I need to lie flat. I need rest that a sidewalk bench cannot provide.
• Bipolar Disorder requires stability. Managing mood and energy requires predictability, medication timing, and a reprieve from the sensory overload of a congregate shelter.
• "Equal" isn't "Equitable." Standardized meal trays don't account for medical dietary needs. Mandatory daytime exits mean being visible, exhausted, and vulnerable for ten hours a day.

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The Criminalization of Exhaustion

After the Supreme Court’s ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the line between "voluntary" and "forced" has blurred. When the alternative to an inaccessible shelter is handcuffs, the word "voluntary" loses all meaning.

If my body gives out on a park bench because I was forced out of a shelter at 8:00 AM, I am treated as a public nuisance. I have harmed no one. I am not violent. I am simply a person whose medical records were ignored for half a decade.

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I am still here. I am still waiting to be housed. I am not a criminal; I am a survivor of a system failure.

Thank you for reading.