shipbuilding

I have been thinking a lot about houses/ housing/ homes lately. At present, the vast (VAST!) majority of my friends live somewhere that they pay rent, be this an apartment, condo, house, room in a house, co-op, university/ college residence, etc.

Very few of the people I know seem to have a concrete plan for purchasing housing. I am curious as to why this is.

Many of my friends are college or university educated. And while we are surely not in the ‘entrepreneur’ category, many of us have decent/ okay/ pretty well paying jobs.

Up until a few months ago, I had imagined that becoming a home-owner would never be in the cards for me. However, the more that I think about it, the more that I realize that being a renter is more of a privilege for someone like me than being a mortgage payer would be.

I am not sure how to explain this.

Man, I long for a day that everything isn’t about my health – but in this case, my health now plays a central role in the type of housing I choose. Having an unpredictable illness has eliminated any desire that I ever had to have the freedom of being a renter. I just can’t do it. It is not, in any way viable for me. I know how fucking shitty disability income is. I know what it is like to live on welfare. I know that my long term disability insurance at work is going to do every possible thing to deny any claim that I will ever attempt to make. What I now know is that no human should be expected to live on $500/m. – whether they are abled or disabled. You cannot rent a place, have enough money to feed yourself, and pay for your medical costs by the means available to someone who is disabled and cannot work.

And therefore, I am putting my money on mortgage insurance. At least this way, on the inevitable day when I go blind (again), cannot get out of bed because of fatigue/ pain (again), or am struck with mobility issues that disallow me from doing my job – at least then my whole sense of home and safety and purpose and place might not come crashing down.

People continue to wonder what I am doing so far out in the ‘inconvenient’ suburbs. Well, I am hashing out a plan to finance the purchase of a small, air-conditioned, wheelchair accessible apartment. I *do* have the luxury of living rent-free (for the time being). I am learning how to make the most of it.

Houses, anyone?