On Privilege, Survival, and Going (Sort Of) Homeless
June 21, 2023
I’m going to be homeless in a week.
It sounds really strange, doesn’t it? To know and say that out loud.
And yet.
Years of healing deep trauma and loss has taught me so much in life that I say these words with more trepidation than fear.
And no sense of self-guilt or anguish.
That it’ll be ok.
Because this is a path I am choosing in order to reset and reground myself in a new space as I find myself just 8 days shy of my move from Orlando to Raleigh.
“Wait - Hold up, Jai. How does that make any freakin sense?!”
I know, I know.
To someone fearful of change and who has never had to start over from zero before—it probably doesn’t.
But to me—there is something comforting about being able to start over on my own terms.
Leaning on Earned Privilege
These times have been humbling. Especially when leaning into everything I’ve experienced since my career path led me to the tech realm and as I bear witness to the stories of others going through similar circumstances on LinkedIn.
Knowing that I am in my current position today because of hard lessons learned and understandings gained from observing the decisions made by those in more affluent positions.
I continue to face the realities of living within a marginalized experience, but I do so with what my literary education and white-collar experience has taught me.
My survival relies on my ability to make decisions from the lens of economic privilege.
“Wait. What?”
Ok, Hear me out.
Oddly enough, even as the funds I’ve spent the past few years rebuilding dry up, I’m not yet living in a state of day-to-day panic as I count down the days to my move.
As someone who has grown up in a Puerto Rican/Army Veteran household, I’ve learned about how to live below my means. But even then, it has continued to surprise even me that:
I’ve had enough savings to help me last almost a year unemployed.
I still have untouched 401K funds while still unemployed.
I am still able to be intentional about the companies I apply to, the teams I want to join, and the corporate work cultures I am willing to work within versus spam applying to thousands of jobs.
I have stayed committed to investing in my mental health out of pocket and maintaining healthy levels of emotional stability.
And (head-scratchingly)
I am still slightly comfortable enough position to decide that a temporarily homeless existence would help my financial foundations restabilize and ensure I don’t fall into the pitfalls of debt.
And being able to “choose” temporary homelessness is itself a decision steeped in a mindset of privilege.
It is a privilege I acknowledge I have as so many around me continue to be forced on this path of “starting over from nothing” from more dire circumstances.
While I will not be able to find a new home in my new state due to the hiring challenges I find myself continuing to face as a BIPOC, Woman in Tech…
(and even more challenging still—Gaming)
…I count myself one of the fortunate few in a position where I still have the ability to rent long-term (albeit cheap) hotel stays to help buy myself more job hunting time.
That I have been able to:
- Maintain friendships with amazing people I know I can lean on for help as I settle into my new city.
- Build a supportive network that continues to validate the need for my existence and experience unasked. I see a gap that I so intensely want to help fill. Which motivates me to keep trying against all odds.
- Cultivate healthy co-parenting partnership that afford me the freedom to focus on stabilizing myself without worrying about my temporary inability to provide a home for my kids. “Whatever you need, we’ll work through it.”
And how in the WORLD exactly?
Thanks to an early employee stock buyout during a startup investment round and my ability to aggressively save.
Thanks to maintaining positive relations with coworkers who referred me to a Financial Advisor who has continued to help maintain and even grow the funds post layoff.
Thanks to learning about the concept of positioning myself better vs “surviving another day” from executive leaders and listening intently to discussions regarding risk, ROI, investments, equity and asset building.
Thanks to having earned comfortably enough to cover therapy costs out of pocket with no need to rely on the whims of health insurance coverage. Knowing how invaluable it was as part of my long term strategy to a finding healthy work environment.
One could say that those with inherent or learned privilege are aware of ways to avoid being caught in the webs of economic downfall.
In fact, after this past year and all these layoffs, it stays top of my mind…
Even as I wonder what things look like now as others like me within the tech community have been disproportionately impacted.
…Of how many individuals were not been prepared for it and are now struggling to understand how to stay upright.
And let me tell you.
These damn systems make it hella rough for those of us impacted and trying to get back on our own two feet.
They really expect you to continue falling into the most direst of circumstances before lending aid, but then once you’re there—the debt you begin to owe starts to stack against you.
I’ve been there before.
Paycheck to paycheck leading to cash advances, buy now/pay later, scam traps, educational debt, and skyrocketing credit card usage.
But living day-to-day makes it hard to see into tomorrow.
It is through privilege you can see the way old money systems actually function - not what they are painted out to be or even how our Gen X, immigrant-heritage parents taught us.
It is sad and frustrating as I try to use those same systems in place to suppress my ability to move ahead to help me hold on to the progress I’ve made as one of the less than 2% of Latina women in tech.
What’s worse is when I find it leading me towards a lose-lose loop of economic struggle.
Which I completely refuse to fall into.
Nothing Lost, Nothing Learned, Nothing Gained
I’ve spoken about my current struggles numerous times before.
And it can be hard to focus on the positive when faced with the choice of going “backwards” just to survive.
But I do attribute much to hours upon years spent sifting through and processing my work and life experiences as part of my journey to becoming a more fulfilled, complete self.
And I write this more to myself when I say:
Being able to make it this far is also in part due to wisdom gained from years learning how to live as a young, relatively poor, single-income Latino family…
…and a childhood spent learning how to quickly adapt to cultural overhauls as an army brat — moving to across country and seas every 2-4 years.
I guess in a similar way, for the better half of the last four years I’ve made every effort to put healthy systems of support in place.
I knew I had to create my own life changes when living in a city I thought I would never be able to leave.
So even with two children, I never lived beyond my means and created a wide security net so that even if I happened to face an unplanned layoff or job loss again, I would be in a much better place.
That I would still have the freedom to choose my own path as an educated, independent co-parenting mother of two.
Maybe it’s why I have no fear about starting over and instead feel a bubbling sense of excitement.
I want to be out of this place. Start over.
Because even 11 months after layoff #2…and jobless…I am still in a better place than where I was just five years ago.
Glass Mirrors on Broken Tree Branches | Photographer: Jesenia Vargas
I can still feel the proud gaze of my therapist as I remember how I turned to the empty whiteboard during our last official session.
Remember how strange I felt that I wasn’t panicking, overcome with fear and anxiety about not having “everything figured out” one week before the big move.
“Look at how far you’ve come since we started.”
June 2018
The day my then-husband walked out the door on our marriage leading to my first layoff post-partum at the company we both worked together felt like I really had lost everything.
Inherited debt, divorce fees, lawsuit fees, hospital fees, therapy fees. My credit score in the low 600’s.
I had nothing but a five year old and a one week newborn, two cars, a nearly maxed credit card, and an apartment I needed to move out from. I was isolated, spiraling and severely impacted by trauma, and had no one to really turn to.
August 2022
The week leading up to my second layoff, I was also spiraling - Panic attacks. Depression. Mental shut downs.
But it was different.
Because deep inside there was a sense of relief when it happened. On the verge as I was to request short term disability leave.
I knew I hadn’t lost everything.
I had only lost a job.
One my own therapist had admittedly been hinting for months was key in my then flailing (but stubbornly-hanging-on-by-a-hairstrand) mental health.
In the span of five years between layoffs, I’d managed to gather up enough funds for a down payment on a house.
I had a micro travel savings, a fun money savings, and had recovered my credit score to the high 800’s with no more than $200 owed on credit.
The day I was let go, I had a licensed therapist who I could call while I wept for over an hour in my car and talk me through my emotions, and a doctor who made sure my health or medication wasn’t adding anything else to my weeping bucket.
I had a now 8 year old and 4 year old who hugged me, letting me know it’s ok. And who gets excited for me when I tell them of a new interview with x, y, z company (Standing Stone Games, Nexon, Bungie, Gearbox, EA, the list goes on) .
And when I say I didn’t get it, tell me between hugs or back pats,
“It’s ok. You can go work for Roblox!” (Love you tons, kiddo. Can’t wait to see you both again soon in a few days.)
I have a co-parent who has openly supported the decision for a complete CO-FAMILY relocation, and extended his hand as a fellow parent to care for the kids while Mom fights for a path forward in making dreams happen.
I may not know where this path I’ve chosen will lead me.
Or who I will connect and meet along the way.
But at least I know I will find a place that will bring me joy while being close to the people I value most.
And where the military brat child in me can find comfort in new places and experiences that will help balance out the worries on my mind.
Help nurture the parts that make me feel most like myself.
Everything I’ve learned and gone through to make it this far reminds me of my true value.
I’m worth more than the silence of strangers, hundreds of rejections, and discriminatory odds.
I could never settle for anything less and will continue to pave my way with open arms in hopes I can continue to help others along the way.
And I can already see myself standing in silence as I overlook lakes and listen to the call of wood thrushes and sparrows, shaded by branches upon rustling oak branches.
Thinking of my next steps.
I had, and still have, everything I really need to continue surviving this layoff.
With or without my name on a lease or mortgage.
Or a physical address called “Home.”
