I live in residence at a university. I don’t make a lot of money—around $1600 Canadian, $1240 in US dollars. I just found out that they gave away my room to somebody else for the fall. I applied to stay in residence come fall over a month ago, and they confirmed that my room was still available. I had to pay a $50 application fee, and I just couldn’t swing it, which I reached out to them about and asked them to please hold my room anyway. Please note that I’m staying in residence currently, and am paying over $600 a month to stay here. I haven’t been late on rent or anything, I just couldn’t swing an extra $50 on top of that.
They didn’t even tell me to my face that they gave it to someone else, I found out from a form email they sent to everyone whose application fee was still outstanding that said that all rooms had been assigned already. This maybe wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I grew up in foster care and the idea of losing the first place I’ve ever felt safe in, the room that I’ve tried to make into a home, has me sitting here sobbing. It’s retraumatizing, and it brings back memories of every foster or “adoptive” home that I was forcibly removed from.
And it’s not just that. My bank account is overdrafted, even my PayPal is negative. I basically only eat from food banks and the extremely unpredictable community fridge. I cried yesterday because I couldn’t manage both rent and food. I’m almost out of medicine for a life-threatening condition and don’t know how I’ll get more. I work full time and I do odd jobs like dog walking. I sold my Pokémon backpack, one of my most treasured possessions, to some collector because I couldn’t afford not to.