The Hearing on November 10

There are moments in life when you find yourself fighting battles you never imagined you would have to fight. Sometimes those battles aren’t about grand ambitions, personal achievements, or chasing dreams. Sometimes they’re simply about trying to keep a roof over your head.

On November 10, I have an eviction hearing concerning my home at Mission City RV Park in San Antonio.

For some people, an eviction hearing might look like a straightforward disagreement about rent. But the circumstances surrounding mine are considerably more complicated than a number on an account statement.

Over the past several months, my life has been marked by financial hardship, disability-related challenges, and the exhausting effort of trying to keep basic necessities in place while navigating systems that seem to assume everyone has the same ability to manage their lives.

I don’t.

Living with autism and ADHD means that seemingly ordinary administrative responsibilities can become significant obstacles. Organization, remembering deadlines, coordinating services, managing paperwork, and navigating complicated processes can require considerably more effort and support than people realize.

These aren’t excuses. They’re realities that affect how I function and how I navigate everyday life.

And when financial hardship enters that picture, the consequences can compound quickly.

More than an unpaid balance

My home is my RV. It is where I live, where I keep my belongings, and where my two older companions, Calisifer and Oogie, live with me.

This isn’t simply a matter of finding another place to park a vehicle.

It’s my home.

The situation at the RV park has involved disagreements over the circumstances of my tenancy, demands that I leave, and the possibility of losing my housing while I am already struggling to find a way forward.

There have also been circumstances involving utilities and access to electricity that have made an already difficult situation even more challenging.

When you are living on limited resources, without a dependable support network nearby, every additional obstacle has consequences.

Finding another place isn’t as simple as packing a suitcase and signing another lease. It requires money, transportation, coordination, resources, and the ability to navigate an overwhelming number of logistical details.

Those are precisely the things that become hardest to manage when you’re already struggling.

The part people don’t always see

One of the hardest things about being disabled is that people often judge your circumstances without understanding the limitations behind them.

They see a missed deadline. They don’t see the executive-function difficulties that contributed to it.

They see a financial problem. They don’t see the circumstances that made it difficult to manage everything else at the same time.

They see someone who needs to get things handled. They don’t necessarily see someone who may need assistance with the very steps required to handle them.

There is a difference between being unwilling to take responsibility and having a disability that affects your ability to independently manage complicated responsibilities.

That distinction matters.

I am not asking anyone to pretend that financial obligations don’t exist. I am asking for the circumstances surrounding my situation to be understood in their entirety.

November 10

As the hearing approaches, I find myself facing another unfamiliar and stressful process.

There is uncertainty about what happens next, where I will be able to live, and how I will manage whatever comes afterward.

But I also believe that my circumstances deserve to be heard.

A person’s housing situation should not be reduced to a balance due without considering the larger circumstances surrounding it.

There is a human being behind every case number. There is a life behind every address. And there are consequences behind every decision made in a courtroom.

I am one of those people.

I don’t know what the outcome of November 10 will be. I do know that getting to this point has taken an enormous amount of energy, and that the uncertainty itself is another burden to carry.

For now, I am doing what I can to stand up for my home, protect my ability to remain housed, and make sure my circumstances are represented.

Sometimes survival isn’t about moving forward in great leaps.

Sometimes it’s about fighting to keep the ground beneath your feet.

And right now, that’s exactly what I’m doing.