Smooth Meeting - Rent Raised - Decrease Expenses

Smooth Meeting - Rent Raised - Decrease Expenses

Thanks to answered prayers, the meeting this morning went very smoothly at the Dallas Housing Authority.

God put me with a very friendly and super experienced case worker.

I had triple checked the complicated paperwork before leaving and yet found 2 blanks not filled out. And at the meeting the case worker showed me 2 boxes that needed to be checked in the 17-page packet.

Thankfully, Darlene got her questions answered. Hopefully she will have a better relationship with the agency from now on.

I had felt anxious all morning until I met the caseworker.

I am so glad that is done!

RENT RAISED

I learned that my rent will go up in July.

Most of the rents at this property will gradually go up too. That is the decision of the property owner.  

Most of my rent will still be paid by HUD and my portion of my rent will increase too. I will be informed how much more I will pay later.

DECREASE EXPENSES

So I am motivated to decrease my expenses to cover my higher rent in midsummer.

Plus at the end of April I will start to pay for Medicare. I have already been notified that 134 dollars will be taken out of my social security retirement direct deposit.

I met with an insurance agent that helped me apply for Medicaid. He says he thinks they will pay for all the 134 dollars. But he said it may take a time for that to be approved and put into place.

Please pray for this speedy approval and implementation.

STORAGE

Previously God had provided enough for me to get by month by month. Then with this pinch I looked again at my monthly expenses.

The big bill that jumped out was for storage. I have been paying for a storage unit near Love Field for more than 3 years. At first it was 5 by 10 feet. Then I gave away things to trim it to 5 by 5 feet.

I have paid thousands of dollars over these years. This included when I was living in the homeless shelter for 3 years.

When I entered the shelter I expected I would only be there a few weeks. Then each month I expected to move out soon. God provided the hope. If I had known from the start I would be there 3 years I would have been deeply depressed. The sign by the office says they can ask a resident to move about 2 years. So God gave me favor.

Mostly what is in storage are books and paper files. There are some clothes and items for the kitchen.

As I look back on this I feel disturbed. All along I had hoped that I would soon not need that storage.

Then when I moved to this apartment in Ennis I failed to ask for help to move those items. If I could have moved the things privately then I would have soon after getting here. But it is a 45 minute drive to get there. Plus there will need to be more than 1 pickup or a rented cargo van.  

I was too proud to ask for help. I knew that was the next step but I kept putting it off. Requesting assistance from those at church was on my TODO list but never got done.

So FINALLY with this pressure I have asked for prayers from those that God might use to help.

I learned that they are willing helpers but various ones are out of town at different times. So it is back to prayer for God to coordinate this move of things from storage here safely.

Upon reflection about this storage matter I notice how much I love my books.

I notice how attached I have been to boxes of notes.

I notice how all the items in storage are not real needs. I have made it without them. It is one thing to think about the difference between needs and wants. It is another to live it out.

Part of me has been disturbed by the storage companies along the highways. I think judgemental thoughts about those people that pay to keep things they never use. I have thought of how that storage money could go to pay off debts, save, invest, enjoy life, and be given to nonprofits. Then I find myself as one that is paying rent for things.

I have thought of how those buildings are a glaring example of our collective materialism. We are addicted to buying and keeping things. Have they become idols?

I have considered the billions of fellow residents on our shared planet that have so few possessions compared to our abundance. I consider those in the historic drama movies I enjoy that lived a much simpler lifestyle.

Then I am reminded of Luke 7:5

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

So pray for the Lord to help me remove this plank from my eye as well as other planks that need to be removed.

Shalom

John

Jaw pain is GONE - PTL and all housing documents are not yet ready.

Hours before I sent out the prayer request yesterday the pain at the joint of my jaw on the right side was getting steadily worse.

I had prayed the best I could.

I had massaged the area.

The pain was between the skin of my cheek and the inside of my mouth.

It was hard to isolate and sometimes it was in different spots of that area.

I was concerned that I would not be able to sleep last night.

I had briefly imagined going to the doctor today to get painkillers and tests.

Thankfully my Medicare and health insurance began at the beginning of April.

Shortly after I sent out the prayer request the pain decreased unto zero.

I slept well last night.

This morning I remembered a few times that I heard a pop in that area when I chewed. But that was months ago and not recently.

SO I make another prayer request for the ongoing protection of my jaw joint.

I hope this is not the first sign of TMJ. I plan to live for 2 to 3 more decades. I do not want that kind of pain anymore.

DOCUMENTS

My patience has been S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D.

Getting ready for the meeting at the Dallas Housing Authority has taken me down twisting paths.

I have been at this for more than 7 hours and I am not yet finished!

It is so easy to write on the housing authority annual recertification form to bring this list of documents. This includes bank statements, utility bills, income statements, and more.

IF this was 20 plus years ago then I would ONLY need to go to the statements that had been MAILED to me. BUT I went paperless since it was first offered.

Darlene took me to the public library to access their printer. I had imagined that I could print out all the documents in 10 to 15 minutes. But I could not access my accounts. The passwords to each account were saved on the Chrome browser and I had them backed on index cards.

SO I then I went home to go online to put ALL those on PDFs. That seemed simple at first. But many of the providers hid such data behind lots of menu options.

Even when I found the data it was complicated to get all of them converted to PDFs.

After church on Sunday, I went to the home of a friend. There were issues to get his computer to read the PDFs on my flash drive. Then finally 33 pages were printed.

This is Monday and I found that about a third of those pages were just legal fine print.

Plus as I looked very closely at what was required there are still a few documents missing. I need to go dig out 3 more sets of data to put on PDFs.

I have asked a neighbor to use his printer and he has agreed. But that is after I dig them out.

PRINTER

Please pray that in due season God will provide a printer for me. If you have a used printer that is collecting dust and you want to give it to me, then let me know. Otherwise, pray for God to provide the money right on time. I rarely need a printed but when I do it is USUALLY easy to get to the library.

TIMING

I had one week to get all this together. I get so little mail that I go days without checking it. Thankfully I got this letter the day it arrived.

There is a bolded sentence on the paperwork that says, Failure to attend this appointment will result in termination of your housing assistance.

Note they did not call or email me to find if I was available. They set told me when to be there. I could have been out of town, sick, or at a job that did not let me take off.

I guess so many people have abused the system that they must have all this documentation. And like the times I have helped various people navigate aid from agencies the caseworkers were always overworked with far too many clients to serve gracefully.

I understand and I forgive. But if I was still leaning on alcohol to cope with my upsets, like I was in college, then I would have gotten drunk a few times by now due to the big bumps on this path.

PRAYER

Please pray that I get ALL the documents printed.

May I fill out ALL the places on the 17-page packet properly.

May the meeting with at the housing authority go smoothly for me and Darlene. I just need to get approved for another year and she has several questions to be answered.

CONCLUSION

On one hand, I apologize that this message is so long. On the other hand, I am passing through a complex set of difficulties. I need targeted prayers.

THANKS again for ALL  your prayers.

Shalom

John

Please pray for the healing of my right jaw.

Please pray for the complete healing of the cause for the sharp pain on the right side of my face.

It is near my ear and well inside the skin. I have felt it at the hinge of my jaw.

In my 64 years, I have never had such pain.

I do not recall any injury.

The Lord Jesus Christ is my Healer. I have experienced many healings just due to answered prayers.

Shalom

John

Annual Recertification for Housing - Please Pray for All to Go Smoothly

I got a letter in the mail with a 17-page package from Dallas Housing Authority.

They set an appointment for me to bring this all filled out with all the required other documents to the office in Dallas on Wednesday, April 11 at 10 AM.

Fortunately, it happens that Darlene wants to take me the 45 minutes to get there because she has had unanswered questions and poor communications with that agency. There are other residents here at Oak Timbers from other cities and the communication with their agencies is much better.

By the grace of God, the majority of my rent has been paid since July by this Section 8 Housing fund. 

I share this with you in order to request your special prayers.

There are many questions to be answered and blanks to be filled just like with the initial application. 

Then there is a need for many supporting documents about my income, expenses and more. It was getting ALL the supporting document to them with my application that was challenging before.

When the paperwork is submitted and I pass the interview then the subsidized rent will be renewed for another year. 

I am grateful that God provided a ride there and back. AGAIN God has sued Darlene as a person of peace in my life.

Please pray for me to complete all the paperwork in a way that is suitable.

Especially pray for the documentation. What complicates that is that I mostly do business online yet they want paper copies of my file. I do not have a printer. So I must line up all my documents as PDFs and get a ride to the library to get them printed before the interview.

Pray that the interview goes smoothly and that I pass the first time.

THANKS for ALL your prayers.

Shalom

John

P. S.

The Lord reminded me that at this time last year I was struggling to find an apartment complex to accept my housing voucher. 

I had been living in the homeless shelter for 3 years. 

I was requesting many prayers. 

Then right on time, this door opened in Ennis. The paperwork was approved ONE day before the expiration of my third and FINAL voucher. 

I have found this place to be very safe and peaceful.

My neighbors are friendly and the slower pace of this small town is a welcomed relief from the hurry of Dallas.

SO I am a living witness that God answers prayers. Amen?