Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

Sometimes there is no perfect solution. The court also has to take practicality into consideration.

The welfare of the child is often best served by allocating custody such that a child can stay at one residence most of the time (with regular visitation to the other parent to maintain the relationship), so that the stability of the child's living situation is not disturbed by having to constantly switch between two residences, having their school routine and social life disrupted, etc.

Also, custody split is only part of the issue. Supposing parent A earns 2x parent B's income, they should still be paying child support even if custody is 50:50, so that the same standard is maintained across both households.

My $0.02 please

Recommended plan 1. Find a new-ish laptop immediately. You can get a decent used one for $1K on backmarket.com. Invest in an ergonomic mouse and an iPad for 2nd monitor as well. 2. Do only high value tech work that pays or you learn something that will pay. Be hungry and stay homeless but do not work as an Uber driver it's a poverty trap by design. 3. Find a host family, welcoming community or marry up. You can't beat depression or get back on your feet alone. One suggestion is: go to SLC and get involved in Hacker and / or rock climbing communities.

Def get rid of the desktop computer. You don't have a desk and are unlikely to for long time.

Again my $0.02 please it's hard but you're on the right track IMO

>it is not fair for one parent to deprive the child of support and resources that they would otherwise receive because of a dispute with the other parent.

Only in a rather crazy partnership is that the case. My child's resources and support absolutely fluctuate with my actual income, preferences, and obligations and as a compromise of financial disputes.

Recently I built a house instead of working, willfully drastically lowering my income to 0. The child had all the necessities met, but anything beyond was less plentiful than before and we had to cook frugal foods. The child was not neglected or abused so nothing illegal, but standard of living significantly lowered. It is fair that the child's standard of living lowers with the parents, but your system would have me a criminal were it I didn't have custody.

It doesn't make sense that married people can willfully lower standard of living but non custodial parents cannot. The standard should be the same uniformly but were it the case it would be voted down, thus is a case of the majority buying a sense of smug moral imposition at no cost to themselves against the evil divorcing sinners, to the great benefit of family law practices who often ruthlessly pursue it for profit.

Interesting ... The original poster did not say one word about child support, and this string turned into a child custody and support debate. The solutions: 1. Automatic 50/50 custody at the time of separation. 2. Because each parent has equal 50/50 responsibility for the child, support should be only a small amount from the higher earning parent to the lower earning parent to equalize the financial environment for the child in each household. 3. No "imputed income" ... EVER. Child support based upon real income only. 4. Audit how the recipient spends child support for the benefit of the child. 5. If all this isn't done, child support strike! Just sit in the jail and do nothing. Let the citizens of the county pay support to feed, clothe and house the child support obligors until they beg their legislators to change the law.

To the original poster: Check with your local senior citizens' services agencies. See if they have a senior citizen shared housing program. I don't know how old you are, but only one of the parties in a shared housing arrangement needs to be a senior citizen or disabled. Rent could be very low, or could be just maintenance on the home, or just companionship.

> It doesn't make sense that married people can willfully lower standard of living but non custodial parents cannot.

Of course it does - because both parents are responsible for the welfare of the children, and so if they both decide that they want to lower the standard of living that is a shared/joint agreement.

If the non-custodial parent decides they want to lower their child's standard of living, a) that is a unilateral decision, and b) they (the non-custodial parent) don't have to bear the implications of that lowered standard of living.

> your system would have me a criminal were it I didn't have custody.

Yes, sadly, having children means that sometimes you lack flexibility and can't make the decisions you would like to make.