I am waiting for my Monday Night Memorial Video for The Love, Elijah Project to finish saving, and then I will be eating dinner and then going for my nightly one hour walk.
I promise not to make a habit of this, but I wrote a really long Go Fund Me update today, and it touches on the costs of being homeless, along with some nice things we have done in Elijah's memory, so I am going to copy and paste for my blog tonight.
Plus, only two or three people liked it on my Facebook page, so I'm not sure anybody actually read it.
Anyways, here it is. Please read all the way to the end, because that is where the good stuff is, I promise:
Agh! The Walk is Officially 7 months away today (unless something happens that pushes it up or back)....
This morning I did another 2 hour walk.
I decided to take a sidewalk and just follow it for an hour so I could turn around and walk back an hour and make 2 hours.
It was a pretty good decision...lol.
I picked up some trash off the ground as our act of kindness today in memory of our son Elijah.
I met a cat that let me pet him (or her?).
I found a "little library" and borrowed the a book for Alex and me to share. (Alex is my 13 year old).
And tomorrow I will take a couple of the books I wrote and donate them to the library in memory of Elijah.
Good decision indeed.
You guys, I seriously love to walk....
It is getting hotter in the mornings, so I need to remind myself to drink more water.
But I still love it.
Which is great if I am getting ready to walk across the entire USA. lol.
While I walk I often "house hunt" like a lot of people "window shop."
I am never critical, I just pick things about houses I like and think about how "This would be good for the kids," or "Oh! That has a little mother in law suite. I could use that for our art studio for bereaved parents." And of course, "Oh it has a garage, Levi could use that for his home gym.
I'm not much on big houses, I think I have been institutionalized by all these hotel stays...lol.
I'd prefer something where I won't lose my children and we are all guaranteed to be forced to do some family bonding once a day.
Levi and I applied for Shipt today. Well, I applied yesterday and interviewed today. Levi has to now set up his interview.
Shipt is a grocery delivery service and we would be shoppers/deliverers.
It is super awesome because it allows you to make your own hours, and it would bring in a little bit of income for our family (because we currently have none), and we would still be able to prepare for the walk and Levi can still train for MMA.
Brilliant!
While it is brilliant, it will not be enough to get us into a home around here.
Our past rental problems, and horrible credit, along with bills are still hovering over us.
I recently heard Bernie Sanders say something in a speech about how expensive it is to be homeless, and I concur.
I can see how this would confuse people, if I had not been here myself, I would find it misleading, so let me explain why it is actually more expensive for my family to be homeless than it would be for us to live in a home.
My family has been staying in hotels, because my income was not enough to get me approved to live in an apartment complex. However, weekly hotel rates add up to more than I would pay in rent at most apartments around here.
Apartments usually require your monthly income to be three times the cost of your monthly rent costs. And if you have ever had any problems in the past paying your rent on time, your more at risk to either be denied for a lease, or end up having to put a ridiculous amount of money ahead as a downpayment to secure your spot, which most people don’t have.
In reality, it would actually be a lot less expensive for my family to own a home, but our credit is not good enough to get a home without a downpayment, and we can’t afford a downpayment at this time.
So, please don’t think I have not thought of these options, because I have longed and dreamed for them.
Living in hotels, before we started our art studio and moved all our stuff into a room there, we were also paying about $180 to keep all our stuff in storage.
When we moved all of our stuff to the studio, we ended up having to purge over 1/2 of it and bring it to Goodwill as one huge donation. I got rid of everything except for furniture we could use for future “clients” and sentimental things like Elijah’s clothes and items, my grandmothers pots and pans that I had saved for when we do actually get a kitchen, and my Christmas ornaments and books.
Hotels rarely have anything larger than a mini fridge to store food, and all we usually had to cook our food in a microwave, until we found an old toaster oven in storage. And we were lucky if the hotel had a fridge.
Because of this, we have to go to the grocery store more often, and our food choices were very limited.
Also, forget saving any food, since a mini fridge does not allow room for much storage. So no saving money there.
I had already had a library card in another county, but I tried to get a library card in a county that we were now staying in, so I could get books for the kids and have something for them to do other than watch hotel T.V. but was denied because I didn’t have anything to prove that we had residency. And they would not take a hotel bill.
That is right, homeless people cannot get library cards.
I also have to pay for a P.O. Box if I want to get any mail, and that was a nightmare to acquire too.
Luckily I found a private business that offered post office boxes as long as I had 2 forms of identification. But the rates are much higher, and I have to drive across town to get there.
Also I have to pay anywhere from $7 to $10 a week to wash our clothes at the coin laundry.
This is just some of the price I pay to keep my family off the street— where the truly homeless live.
Let me be perfectly clear here, I am honestly thankful to have the things we do have, no matter what they end up costing me. It is a very bittersweet position to be in, but it is not an easy position to be in.
We are very aware of how lucky we are to have what little we do have, and we still try our best to help others that are not as fortunate as much as we can.
Many times I have taken the children to the large city park here and handed out food to the homeless men and women resting there during the day.
We sometimes keep water bottles and fruit snacks in our car and my son Alex likes to hand them out to those who are begging in the streets.
Just a couple of weekends ago, we were in New Orleans visiting my mom and we walked past a homeless man who had a sign saying he was broke and hungry and my son Julien, who is just six years old, asked me if we could give him one of our water bottles.
I am sometimes touched by humbled our little family has become by our homelessness.
I think about how close we have become being forced to share just one room together, sharing beds, and sharing encouragement.
The cost of homelessness is outrageous, but the lessons it has taught me are priceless.
Homelessness has also taught me that love is greater than any obstacle, compassion is the cure to hopelessness, and material things have no real value when it comes down to it.
Anywho, those are my thoughts for today. Please don't forget to send those donations, keep us in your positive thoughts and prayers, be kind, and live your life to the fullest!
~Kelly Airhart
Alright, tomorrow I plan to be more original. I promise.
Please continue to pray for our world. Pray for my family. Pray for me. And always always, pray for my sweet Elijah.
Thanks <3
(These next sets of photos of Elijah will be a little blurry because Levi was trying to take a picture for me of me and Elijah playing patty cake and he was moving all over the place.)
Oh how I would love to play patty cake with you!
I think the first thing I will do when I get to heaven is play a round--
I don't care how old you and I are up there.
I can't wait to see your sweet face and hold your sweet hands again.
I miss you my boogie.
Always
<3
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