I’m in a very red state and have been trying to move to a blue state. (Or another country tbh but that is overwhelmingly complicated and expensive). Currently living with family but that has run it’s course.
So my partner and I have been applying to places but I just had a bankruptcy this year, my partner is in the process of doing a bankruptcy, I’m on a fixed income, and my partner’s income is unsteady. Plus we each have a dog. We’ve had them all their lives. There’s no way we can give them up.
I just don’t know what to do or where to go. Rent is so expensive. We need a 2 bedroom so that my partner can have a place to work. Our credit scores suck. And a lot of these places want 700+ score and no bankruptcy in the last 10 years!
We were going to have a cosigner, but they want the cosigner to have 4 or 5x the rent as income. With rent for just a studio going over $1k that’s more than our potential cosigners make. And that’s just for a studio, when we really need a 2 bedroom. We could probably make a 1 bedroom work, but it doesn’t really matter when we don’t meet the qualifications and neither does our potential cosigners.
I tried looking at places in rural areas, but even those places are expensive and with both of us having medical appointments every week, usually multiple times a week, the driving would be killer.
We can’t even go to a shelter, not just because of the dogs but because all the shelters around us you have to work (some of them you have to pay rent also!). I am disabled and physically cannot work, and even if I really pushed myself and was somehow able to, I’m not allowed to work because I will lose my disability check.
I’m just at a complete loss. I have no idea what to do or where to go. I have some money in savings from a settlement, but that is running out fast with all the medical costs. And I can’t stop going to my appointments or I will end up losing my disability check as well when I come up for review.
That’s why we want to go to a blue state because we would both qualify for Medicaid which would give us more of our income back. And also have more of a community hopefully.
I just need advice? Or maybe solidarity? Is it going to work out 😭
I don’t have any advice for you but I do wish you the best and I trust that things will work out in the end. Hang in there.
Thank you. I appreciate it
In the places you want to apply, check the laws on how much income landlords are allowed to require co-signers to have. For example, in Portland, OR, landlords may not require that an applicant’s gross monthly income be more than 2 times the monthly rent if the rent is above the amount affordable to people making 80% of the median household income. If it’s below that, then they can’t require more than 2.5x. (Apologies for the run-on sentence, that wording was almost directly copied from Portland’s renter’s handbook.)
This is so helpful! I can’t remember where but someone wanted the cosigner to have 5x the rent! If I knew someone with that much money I probably wouldn’t be looking at low income housing, lol
