This is a non-profit. Finding the google form to request assistance can be a little tricky.
r/roomandboard resource list. This is a list of places you can live where you work, so you don’t have to worry about rent.
For the section on intentional communities, as well as any platform where you are staying in someone’s home, the BIGGEST issue is that people who can host make an account and forget about it and never see your messages, usually because platforms are pretty empty. Check for reviews before buying any platform subscriptions or signing up. If the platform does not show when was the last time the user was on it, I wouldn’t even bother using it or sending a message. When sending messages, DO NOT say you are in a desperate situation. If the audience of the platform are people who arrive and leave on specific dates, you should have dates you are arriving and leaving as well. Once there, network to figure out where to go next.
For monasteries, the list only links to info on Christian monasteries. I don’t know anything about those. I do know that there are a large number of Buddhist monasteries that are trans friendly. (However, if you are nonbinary you will need to decide whether you are going to bunk with the women or the men.) You have to option of staying as a “lay person” that does work to support the monastery and the monks practice, or if buddhism is something that speaks to you you can become a monk however you can’t be a monk if you are disabled or if you are running away from debt. (Credit card debt and student loan debt would be a big issue, if the only debt you have is medical and it’s not serious I’d take a don’t ask don’t tell stance.)
If you are looking around on other intentional community sites you’ll find informal Buddhist organizations that may have a community structure similar to a monastery but have different ownership and financial structures, as well as less stringent requirements for who can participate. These may offer longer-term stays compared to the other groups on a platform.
The rest of the list is mostly work-stay employment situations, and whether it’s trans friendly or not will be the same thing you’d have to figure out as if you were applying to a job.
Squatting!
Squatting is stigmatized but legal. It involves finding an abandoned house and moving in. In order for squatting to be legal, you need to improve the property. This usually involves yard work and renovating. Usually you can turn on the utilities and start paying for it. The best properties are ones where the owner passed away and had no living relatives. The houses you can stay in the longest are generally in lower-income areas where real estate isn’t desirable. Eventually at some point you will get evicted if the house gets sold or if the house was owned by a corporation and they decide they want to do something with it.
Some people just move into abandoned houses. Others go through a more formal process, as described below. I’ve heard one way people get houses is by paying the property taxes the day before the county’s auction, and that makes it ineligible to be auctioned. When I did my own research on a specific area I found that paying the property taxes can be a bit expensive and would cost the same as rent if you have to immediately go through the eviction process, and there is a risk for certain circumstances that you could be considered a trespasser and not be able to stay and therefore lose the money you spent.
It seems like the average length of stay is a few months, staying a couple years is really lucky.
In terms of safety:
When possible, squat with others. Buddy system. Safety in numbers. You might be fine doing it alone if you are squatting in an abandoned place that doesn’t look abandoned, such as an HOA apartment or house where there is no suspicion of squatting but that’s not your average property.
If you are a loner you want to vet potential roommates by getting to know them and interviewing them on roommate compatibility, you can try by hanging out with people on discord or meeting people at a local soup kitchen.
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Don’t look like you’re chronically homeless- wear nice clothes and don’t do drugs. Never smoke in the house, try not to smoke weed or cigarettes outside, especially since the smell may bother people. If your neighbors are smoking you will probably be fine but if they don’t you need to do nicotine patches and edibles or find another way.
It’s important to do research on the home’s owner, that’s why I mentioned looking for houses with deceased owners. The political climate is bad and if the owner is alive and doesn’t want you there they might shoot you, as we have seen in a lot of news stories lately of people just looking for reasons to hurt others. If the owner is a corporation I wouldn’t worry about getting shot since employees don’t have the same violent agenda as some “rights/self defense/news” obsessed person.
If it is a low-income area, you will experience the same risks of living there as anyone does in a low-income area.
While squatting is legal but police brutality happens. Prevent interactions by getting familiar with the squatting laws in that area and make sure you aren’t breaking the law- even print it out for your personal reference. Remember to take pictures of the improvements you make of the property. Find a generic “know your rights” script online for interacting with police. Make a squatting specific know-your rights script for yourself. And again, don’t squat alone.
Here’s a guide someone else made:
1 bug the county treasurer for the delinquent property tax list. You aren't using it for commercial purposes, and they should be more than happy to offer it as a digital copy. The sweet spot is 2 years of back-owed property tax.
1. Learn to use the county assessor GIS map. Hopefully they have it on their website. This will allow you a full map of every parcel of land in the county, showing its size, location, parcel number, tax information, blueprints/permitting information, owners name, and owners address. It more than likely will show you a picture of the house as well.
2. Reference each parcel on the tax delinquent list to the GIS map to virtually scout as many properties as possible. Find houses that look vacant in the picture, find properties away from neighbors, etc. Use the death records or local obituary to see if owners deceased, or atleast live at a different address to the property( the gis will tell you their current address). If unsure deceased or living, get their phone number from a background check and call them to see if anyone answers.
3. Boil it down to a list of 15 and bird dog each one. Look through windows, etc. But don't break in unless your sure it's the place for you.
4. Clean the yard, driveway, etc for a couple days, gauging potential neighbors reactions. If they care, they will come let you know right away.
6.Learn to pick locks instead of smashing windows. B&E ain't cool, and why would you smash the windows of your own house?😁 Pick that lock, immediately replace it (and others) with your own locks for the whole house. Get on all utilities and get some credit card/insurance quotes in your name to that address(they will give you ENDLESS piles of mail).
7.I would spend a few months remodeling the house and making it yours, documenting everything to a fault with pictures and receipts. Keep any valuable or sentimental items you find in an organized storage in case. Paint is cheap and makes a big difference. Redo the floors. Deep clean and refurbish appliances/fixtures. Make it esthetically appealing on the exterior.
8.After those few months without trouble, pay the taxes and document it.
If anyone ever comes knocking, be respectful and honest, don't b.s. highlight your positive impact on the property. Your not doing a "bad" thing, and your only increasing value to homeowner/saving them from foreclosure.
Only the owner can evict you. With how much you've invested into your home, get yourself a lawer and try to settle through litigation outside of court. You have evidence of tenancy, evidence of repairs, evidence of tax payments, etc. If they fight, file a lein for the value of improvements you've made, it's earned. Drag that eviction out as long as possible.
If you play nice, you may never be evicted and eventually you can start to think about adverse possession, but I wouldn't count on it.
Expating:
If you can, I’d suggest trying to leave the United States and become an expat. I would also suggest getting involved in activism since other Western countries are slowly becoming similar to the US regarding oligarchs and right-wing issues, and many developing nations are heavily influenced by US politics, and many global transphobia and homophobia legislation is a direct result of what’s happening here.
Do research on which countries are the most friendly to trans people. If you are disabled or poor, it will be extremely difficult to move to a western nation, however there may be some latin american countries that you can go to. If you are interested in moving to a latin american country, feel free to contact me to collaborate.
If you are Jewish, you can move to Israel. It might work well for an emergency if your life is immediately in danger however they currently have right-wing political issues and struggle with transphobia and homophobia a lot more than it says online. Be a digital nomad because you won’t be able to find a job due to discrimination.
TIPS
If you or your biological family are immigrants, and you are comfortable going back to your country, see if you can get dual citizenship.
Countries want skilled labor. Medical or tech industry.
When learning the language, first learn the 200 most common words, slang words, main words used in your profession and hobbies, and language “tricks”. Language tricks are when a large amount of words are really easy to learn because of a similar attribute. You can also do accent training.
When learning a language, watch TV in that language.
The following two links give a lot of great information on becoming an expat.
More info here:
Super detailed info here:
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