Ask HN: American friends life is falling apart badly. What can I do to help?

33 points by freemint 3 years ago | 43 comments

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!

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.

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.

Do you have any resources, know any resources, ... anything i could do to help her?

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.

I can be reached at johann-tobias(at)xn--schg-noa.de .

freemint 3 years ago |

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.

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.

I am not aware of substance abuse issues. There is psychological baggage though related to parental abuse and being trans.

Edit: Yeah i should really sleep now.

pcthrowaway 3 years ago |

I think we should just ignore everyone suggesting she get treated for substance abuse issues.

We don't know her situation, and even if she is using drugs, there are many functional addicts.

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).

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.

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?

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.

edit: since you mentioned she is currently housed at least, it will be much 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?

Getting back on her feet will get much harder if she has to do it while homeless.

freemint 3 years ago | |

Both i and her have an effective social network reach of 0. I had considered asking for help but i have no idea where even to start. If you have any suggestion please email me. You seem to have a good grasp of her situation. Any lead would be helpful.

If you haven't seen i wrote about some code i was she had on her GitHub and we discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35672617

bequanna 3 years ago | |

> The real problem right now is a lack of a social safety net

Is that the real problem here? Unemployment in the United States is incredibly low and those who want to find good work for good pay are able to.

pcthrowaway 3 years ago | | |

I'm assuming you haven't seen people struggling with discrimination, especially trans people in conservative cities, trying to find these easy-to-get jobs which offer "good work for good pay". If you have suggestions of actual places in Chattanooga that would hire her yesterday and start payments in a week, I'm sure OP would be happy to pass that along.

Otherwise, please consider how trans people might be limited by obstacles that cis people don't even realize exist.

t-3 3 years ago | | |

Unemployment numbers are among the most gamed in government, they are totally unreliable if you're trying to get a realistic view of anything. It's really hard to find work that pays above burger-flipping without a college degree or network in most areas, especially in tech fields. With the current downturn and layoffs combined with remote working craze, competition is higher than ever and it's much harder to get a foot in the door.

danielvf 3 years ago | | |

Chattanooga has a 3.3% unemployment rate. By comparison Berlin, Germany has 9.1%. It's definitely an super hot labor market right now.

danielvf 3 years ago |

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.

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.

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.

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.

Good luck to both of you.

rtpg 3 years ago | |

50 weeks at 15 dollars an hour, 40 hours a week is $30k.

I imagine there are better paying jobs but I do think that $40k is not an immediately accessible thing. Though to your point 15 seems in line with what’s on indeed for Chattanooga, many jobs are under that line as well (cashier stuff for $11 or $12), so it might be worth adjusting your preconceptions about the yearly wages that these positons offer.

danielvf 3 years ago | | |

I pulled my number off full time Amazon driving, vehicle provided, which is about $20/hr here. Most low skill jobs in my area are around $12-$17 an hour. Eleven or below is there, but rare. We're probably a slightly more happening town than Chattanooga though.

But even so 30K is still a huge difference from having to scrap for food, or make a computer from spare parts. Changed post from $40K to $30K.

blacksqr 3 years ago |

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.

freemint 3 years ago | |

This sounds useful. Does that apply to faux "independent contractors" too?

In Germany we have a word "Scheinselbständigkeit". People are formally self-employed/independent contractor which are actually totally dependent and this is used to circumvent social security protections.

I think something like that might be going on here.

pcthrowaway 3 years ago | |

If she's been an independent contractor, I don't think she qualifies

sp332 3 years ago |

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") https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/supplemental-n... , Community Service Block Grant agency for her county https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/community-serv... , Home Energy Assistance Program https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/1577 etc.

freemint 3 years ago | |

As far as i can see that food bank is totally overrun according to local news https://www.local3news.com/local-news/chattanooga-area-food-... . I will relay the other links but since she doesn't have children I am not sure in how far the /for-families/ links will be useful. She has been applying for SNAP.

armchairhacker 3 years ago | | |

Also EBT, and she can possibly make some money doing Uber/Lyft/Instacart/Instawork.

You are 100% right that it's hard to get a decent job in the US without connections and/or experience, especially in this economy and especially without formal education. Ideally there is some grant which will let someone like her go through high school and college, but I really have no idea. You will have to look for places like https://www.reddit/r/povertyfinance for people who understand poverty better much than I do.

RecycledEle 3 years ago |

This will be an unpopular opinion, but are you being scammed?

Is she asking you for money?

freemint 3 years ago | |

Thank you for being concerned. No she is not asking for money. I came into contact with her when i discussed a project of mine in a Discord server. She approached me to join that project, did good work, showed geniune interest and had good ideas she was working on. I was looking forward to collaborate more with her. Her hours were cut after she helped the workplace find an issue in their IT infrastructure (which she reported proprely and professionally). It became obvious she didn't deal well with that. She was very overwhelmed with that situation and i offered her which help she accepted.

inconceivable 3 years ago | |

you need to think one level deeper. are we sure we're not being scammed?

the amount of people willing to send complete strangers money over the internet is mind-blowing. check out /r/scams, and be amazed.

phanimahesh 3 years ago | | |

I know the internet is not a good place to be naive, but I find being overly cynical is not a good state of mind to be in - for me. I ocassionally override the "maybe scam" siren in my head if the help I provide is a small amount or non financial.

I can afford to give away the cost of a meal at a restaurant or other small equivalent once in a while without it making a material difference to my own finances.

Always be wary of giving away money, but sometimes a little money is the best help that can be provided.

bequanna 3 years ago | |

I was thinking this same thing.

Please be cautious and avoid sending money.

greenyouse 3 years ago |

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.

The computer architecture is funky so it makes installing some distros a pain in the butt.

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.

Anyway, I'll shoot you an email with some pics and you can let me know what you think.

freemint 3 years ago | |

I've read your email. Thanky you very much for the offer. I relayed it. I would like to make sure it actually works when it arrives at her place. I heard the keyboards of those laptops are fine which would be a huge plus over her programming on her phone.

uberman 3 years ago |

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

freemint 3 years ago | |

She is accessing PCs at work and when she is over with friends. Web technology is great for making stuff accessible. That the local library has a reservation system for public "workstations" makes me dubious one could productively programm there. That the computers in many locations are not available on the weekend makes this harder.

> Public computers and WiFi are available at all five branches of the Chattanooga Public Library. Access to the computers is limited to 2 hours per day if other patrons are waiting. Reservations can be made for the next available computer by phone or in person.

cwiggs 3 years ago |

Maybe they can find a local Hackerspace that will help get a better dev environment setup?

If the have tech skills I would think they could get a basic job easily.

freemint 3 years ago | |

I had not looked into that. There actually is a hackerspace however the rates for membership are $60 per month[1]. The discounted rates don't seem to apply to her situation. [2] It is not obvious whether that space even would be trans friendly. I can see if i can reach someone from there to get a vibe or an idea.

> If the have tech skills I would think they could get a basic job easily.

One would think so naively. I am working towards trying to help her find a job. I have not been at it for long. If you have some insight where i might help her find a basic job making use of her embedded/backend C, C++ skills developing cross platform {Linux, Windows} x {ARM, x86_64} emulator writing tools which work as library and as application with integrated LUA interpreters i would be thankful. It doesn't have to be that specific but that might give people an idea what flame she is cooking with.

[1] https://wiki.chattlab.org/joining_steps [2] https://wiki.chattlab.org/membership

UncleEntity 3 years ago | | |

> It is not obvious whether that space even would be trans friendly.

It’s probably safe to assume most places are “trans friendly” these days — nobody wants the twitter mob[0] after them for <whatever>.

[0] Is that even a thing anymore or did all the dogpilers move to a more “friendly” place?

—edit—

And before I get dogpiled I should say that I mean regular people don’t care not politically motivated health care debates like in other comments.

1attice 3 years ago |

She needs to move.

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.

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.

Just today, another one of us was shot in Atlanta.

Your friend needs to get to a sanctuary state. Someplace like California or Washington.

This will be very difficult. But we're literally now refugees.

Watch what happens to us. Learn what lives in the heart of the America. Disgust is appropriate.

labrador 3 years ago |

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.

https://202friendshiphouse.org/