I am a German university student. Through a hobby project of mine i got to talk to a trans women from Tennessee. She seemed genuinely interested in my project and made valueable contributions. However her capability to contribute has plummeted so i asked her what's up. From what i gathered she works as an independent contractor and was barely making ends meet, then her hours were cut by 10 hours per week and she is in the red and her savings were non existent. I was shocked she has been contributing from an linux environment on her mobile phone!<p>She can't afford getting enough to eat (!!!), her only phone has a broken touch screen, barely works, her car is slowly dying and dangerous to drive. She has been building and rebuilding a computer at home from discraded parts and it keeps failing.<p>I am honestly at a loss. She seems smart, really interested, has projects which i find promising and interesting on her GitHub. She has an technical understanding of things and is able to find root causes for strange problems not in her area of expertise. Due to homeschooling and religious upbringing i think she has been denied a formal education. She seems to deeply care about how things work, isn't afraid to learn obscure skills (which is how we met) and cares about building tools which make resources observable and accessable. I have been trying to help her put a resume together by "pair programming" her resume on my PC and me sharing the screen over discord.<p>Do you have any resources, know any resources, ... anything i could do to help her?<p>A working laptop, a used phone, an interview for a remote junior position, damn even a big box of hygene products and food would help her. I as a university student am not in a position to support her financially and i am not local enough to meaningfully help. As far as i can tell this fate is through no fault of her own.<p>I can be reached at johann-tobias(at)xn--schg-noa.de .
It's getting late here in Germany. Thank you for your input so far. I probably should have put the city name (Chattanooga) in the post. Let me hit on the two aspects so far.<p>My impression is that the US goverment can't really be relied on to help people dig themselves out of such holes. Those social programs are designed to prevent people from starving not put people in a position where they are able to efficiently be able to contribute to society.<p>I am not aware of substance abuse issues. There is psychological baggage though related to parental abuse and being trans.<p>Edit: Yeah i should really sleep now.
I think we should just ignore everyone suggesting she get treated for substance abuse issues.<p>We don't know her situation, and even if she is using drugs, there are many functional addicts.<p>If she's capable of working, it'd be nice if someone in the area offered her something like contract to hire, where they could then see for themselves if she's capable of succeeding in the field (I am in Canada and on the verge of struggling myself, despite also not having substance issues, otherwise I'd offer to help).<p>The real problem right now is a lack of a social safety net, in addition to hiring being incredibly tight (and she's not exactly in a tech hotspot). Trans people also face a lot of discrimination and often are trying to overcome multiple life challenges simultaneously, which compound.<p>Have you considered reaching out to some of the very prominent trans software bloggers who might be sympathetic and also be able to offer better resources?<p>I don't feel like it's appropriate to name names, but if you'd like I can email you the blogs of a few people who would certainly be widely recognized as staff-level, and might be open to helping your friend.<p>edit: since you mentioned she is currently housed at least, it will be <i>much</i> easier for her to turn things around if she is able to find work before that situation changes. Though this is really complicated by her having no work device right now. Can she get a loan to tide her over for the next few weeks? If not, maybe she'd be comfortable setting up a gofundme or similar?<p>Getting back on her feet will get much harder if she has to do it while homeless.
I live in the southeast US, not Chattanooga, but not too far by US standards. At the moment basic, low skilled jobs are in high demand - almost every restaurant or store has a now hiring sign out, and the wages are 50% to 100% higher than before the pandemic. Similar story with manufacturing / warehousing. Amazon wants drivers, Walmart wants drivers, every grocery store wants drivers. I've never seen anything like it.<p>It sounds like most of the short-term emergency things could be fixed with a more steady income stream. [ $30K ] a year in a low cost of living area goes a long way compared to being homeless. It makes the car run, gets a Chromebook, plays for a cell phone plan with tethering.<p>I'm a programmer. I love it. As a teen I did manufacturing for six months, and I hated it. So I certainly understand grabbing a low skill job right doesn't look attractive, but it would stop the financial bleeding, and prevent things from getting out of hand while they find a software dev job.<p>On the immediate food side, I don't know about Chattanooga, but my town has super tiny food banks all over. There's not one centralized organization, and almost all of them are stocked at any one time. The are mom's on Facebook groups who keep track of them, and restock when low. (Some are as simple as a fridge on the side of a building, or a little library style box on a pole.) Most aren't listed on google. Not sure how to find them outside of asking around. Chattanooga has nine food banks listed on google. Odds are that they aren't all out of stock.<p>Good luck to both of you.
In Tennessee you can apply for unemployment if your employer suddenly reduces your work hours significantly. You don't have to wait until you lose your job completely.
Is there a food bank in the area? That could at least help with one of the issues. I think it's at least worth asking about assistance like SNAP (used to be called "food stamps") <a href="https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap-eligibility-information.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/supplemental-n...</a> , Community Service Block Grant agency for her county <a href="https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/community-services-block-grant0.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/community-serv...</a> , Home Energy Assistance Program <a href="https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/1577" rel="nofollow">https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/1577</a> etc.
Hey would she want a laptop for free? I have a 2007 macbook with lubuntu that works great. I used to use it for trips and it's a total workhorse.<p>The computer architecture is funky so it makes installing some distros a pain in the butt.<p>It was something like a 64-bit EFI bootloader for a 32-bit OS. The combo just doesn't work without compiling your own kernel. It's pretty uncommon. No biggie for someone that does C++ or embedded systems though.<p>Anyway, I'll shoot you an email with some pics and you can let me know what you think.
Most public libraries will have a public workstation where web based editor might be used if that helps. After that, a base chromebook is like 300 bucks new
Maybe they can find a local Hackerspace that will help get a better dev environment setup?<p>If the have tech skills I would think they could get a basic job easily.
She needs to move.<p>The psychological pressure we trans people are under in red states is breathtaking. Many of us are losing our health care. This is not a minor thing for us -- speaking personally, I'd rather die.<p>Even if it hasn't happened directly to her, it will have happened to her friends. We all talk. It's hard not to empathize with one another. I myself feel like I'm a tiny leaf on a river of grief, most days.<p>Just today, another one of us was shot in Atlanta.<p>Your friend needs to get to a sanctuary state. Someplace like California or Washington.<p>This will be very difficult. But we're literally now refugees.<p>Watch what happens to us. Learn what lives in the heart of the America. Disgust is appropriate.
Most people in her situation have an issue with drugs or alcohol, which I know because I've met many like her in my struggles. If she's in Nashville I'd recommend she go to the Friendship House and ask for advice, even if she doesn't have a drug or alcohol problem. Nice people there who understand struggle.<p><a href="https://202friendshiphouse.org/" rel="nofollow">https://202friendshiphouse.org/</a>