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Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

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Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#21

You need to find a case worker at the county who actually does their job properly and cares about human beings. - Healthcare -> Medical (California's MedicAid) - Dental -> Dentical (California's MedicAid dental benefits) - Cash aid -> General Relief (GR)/General Aid (GA) - Food aid -> CalFred (California's SNAP) - Temporary HA -> emergency housing assistance - Expanded Temporary HA -> longer-term emergency housing as…

I have used most of those services at some point. MediCal is the least of my worries. And there is no dental care in MediCal, so that's inaccurate.

I got GR two times before. it's $230 per month. they only make you come in to the welfare office with a list of 10 jobs that you applied for per week, to prove you are not just living high off the fat of the land with that whopping $230 per month. both times i was on GR they cut it off after 2 months. then i go into the welfare office, wait 3 hours in line, talk to a new case worker who is a foreigner who doesn't speak English natively, and they are confused about their own system and have no idea why the payments stopped. then they say "well, re-apply to GR and start all over." they force you to wait a minimum of 30 days from when you apply for GR until they deposit and cash into your EBT card account. the reason for the wait is because LA DPSS case workers are so swamped with applicants that it takes a month for them to look at a dozen checkboxes on one piece of paper and approve it in the computer.

while going through the GR process, i just laughed at how many city employees were involved and how many hoops they made us jump through to create busy-work for low level govt clerks, just for $230 per month. GR is more of a welfare program for govt workers than it is for the homeless. 90% of people on GR are the homeless. i bet the administration costs of running the GR program dwarfs the amount of cash aid given to the poorest people.

one thing i found the funniest and saddest about GR cash aid is that i'm jumping through hoops and begging the govt for my own money that i already paid in taxes. when you get GR, they make you sign a form that you understand and agree that GR cash aid will be deducted from your future Social Security income. so in the grand national scheme, none of the States are even giving cash aid to their homeless populations out of the State budget and local taxes--it's all coming from FedGov using Social Security to fund it through the backdoor.

and there is no temporary housing assistance in LA. you can sign up, but the waiting list is over 5 years. i can personally confirm this is the most recent data that LA DPSS told me back in June 2019, the last time i went to the welfare office.

a few times per year they will offer hotel vouchers as temporary housing. but the hotels are in Orange County--an hours drive away, assuming i had a vehicle. i suspect this is another backdoor scheme by which LA covertly ships its homeless population to Orange Country to roll us off the count to juke the stats, so the mayor can have a press conference and say "We are doing something and it's getting better." Also the kicker about the hotel vouchers is that you also have to pay for it from your GR cash aid. coincidentally enough, the amount you would pay for 30 days of hotel vouchers is the entire $230 you would get from GR per month. so your choice is either "here, have $230 per month and stretch it out and try to not die on the street" or "here, go live in a hotel in El Monte in Orange County and have zero dollars to live on." the FBI should probably investigate who owns these hotels used for housing the homeless paid by Social Security funds and who in LA City Govt is getting the kick backs for this scam.

i wasn't exaggerating when i say my mind was blown when i went to the welfare office to get help and saw with my own eyes how little was available and how much of a scam it was.

that was my "Joker" moment.

Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#23
post #5

hey man, it really sucks to be in the situation you are. I don't know anyone who is hiring in LA, but I can venmo you some money if it helps so you can last longer. Let me know and good luck. Have you tried reaching out to universities for IT jobs?

what is your email or chat handle?

Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#25
post #5

hey man, it really sucks to be in the situation you are. I don't know anyone who is hiring in LA, but I can venmo you some money if it helps so you can last longer. Let me know and good luck. Have you tried reaching out to universities for IT jobs?

what is your email or chat handle?

email is in my hn profile

Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#27
Adding this as a top-level comment instead:

The person you replied to was genuinely trying to help you, and you responded by belittling them with outright hostility prior to deleting the post.

I'm not a medical professional, but what you wrote struck me as textbook grandiose delusions, among other things. Said delusions can accompany several forms of mental illness, all of which are very serious and will render you unable to hold down a job, let alone get hired.

Seek mental health treatment. There's no shame in it, quite the contrary. It could very well save your life.

https://www.lahsa.org/get-help

https://locator.lacounty.gov/dmh

Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a place in Burbank that's hiring. The job market in LA is rough really h1b people go to the front of the line I've been through tough times here myself and was born here it's a really mean town. But don't give up if you can get to Midnight Mission they will help you it's in downtown.

hah about the h1b problem. Would you believe my last "real" dev job prior to becoming homeless was at a nationally known name-brand company and my job was to come in as the new guy and recommend to the management which American developers on my team to fire, in order to replace them with an "offshore resource" in India? the carrot on that stick was that each American I got fired, I would receive a small bonus and be…

Where your self-pity needs to be stopped. "No body needs to be homeless in the wealthiest country?" Dude. People are poor all over the country in most places. If you just drive you will see shantys in 50% of all cities. Don't go to that part of town! Your dev skills should put you on the fast track to being on the top again. Hang out there until you feel like you will always have a home, then build your company.

Re: Homeless Developer in Los Angeles Needs Work, Can You Please Help?

#30

But I don't want any free stuff from the gov't. I want to work! I'm not a 10x'er. I did Node.js/Javascript for 7 years. I'm experienced with both front-end/back-end web development, and SQL and AWS and I'm a minor wizard when it comes to Linux. Maybe I'm hitting the dreaded age wall in tech. I have applied to hundreds of devjobs both in LA and remote using all of the top job boards. I got only a handful of interviews…

"Recruiters tell me that I'm a "job hopper" and that "it'll be difficult to place you."

Just explain that you have been contracting for the past couple of years and are now interested in something more permanent..or just look for contracting gigs.

You will most likely need to be more creative when looking for these types of jobs (contracting). Major job boards are filled with recruiters..which makes it difficult. Your best bet is to find companies that aren't using a recruiter.

"far out crazy idea for a hardware device involving Lidar that nobody else is doing"

This is probably not realistic. First find a way to actually make some money now.

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