So, from February 2014 until September 2022, my three-days-a-week aide became my live-in aide. A majority of her pay was living here rent and utility free. Aside from our mutual fondness for horses and similar tastes in music, we have hardly anything in common (she's a multiple Trump voter). When she moved in (while I was in the hospital) she moved almost all my furniture out -- including my entire music collection.
In September 2022, her mother started failing from dementia, so she moved out -- taking almost all her furniture with her (except a dish display cabinet which I hate). From then until January, 2023, she still came by daily to get me in and out of bed.
After that, I hired the services of a personal home healthcare agency -- until this last fall, since learning that hey were charging me for four hour a day, while only paying their workers for the few minutes they were actually here. Also, it terns out:
They've been fiddling with the scheduling records to scam the Veterans Administration out of money
Using the company name as a reference when buying sports cars for themselves, and
Using resources of their H.R. department to listen in on their workers' private phones.
(Tell me again how it's individual people who are faking their disabilities to cheat the system. I dare you).
The aide who was working with me at the time was also working in the office as a scheduler (which is how I learned about all the in-office shenanigans). When she told me, apologetically, that she was going to have to quit because of her boss's abusive behavior, I said the timing was perfect, because I was looking to quit the company, too, and was looking hire someone privately.
And she's been my private aide ever since.
I really like her. She does good work. But she doesn't have a lot of money, she lives in a poor neighborhood with bad roads in an apartment with poor maintenance.
And for the second time, when she couldn't get here (her car has broken down, and so she has to juggle cars with her family), I've had to call a neighbor to help me get out of bed.
And they started talking about how I should fire her "if she's not reliable."
And I'm not gonna do that -- Certainly not at Christmas. Especially when the reasons she hasn't been able to come have never been her fault.
I just hate how the racism, and economic inequality, and disablism combine to reinforce the implicit racist biases. And I hate how the people in roles to help others don't have the resources they need to provide that help.
There are holes all over the safety net. And the net repairer's thumbs have been chopped off.
