Where are you living now?

Well, I have resided in Ocala, FL for the last several years. I came up here from Polk County, FL in the summer of 2011. Because after 10+ years in Retailing and nearly 20 years in the Cosmetology industry, the nationwide recession had my options for work falling through. Disaster relief after a few quite strong hurricane seasons also had come kind of slow.

Cosmetology was my passion, but although I was great at creating, I wasn’t so great at the business side of hairstyling. Plus certain factors of salon life put my health at too much risk. I couldn’t qualify for workers comp or unemployment insurance. Not like that would’ve been reliable pay.

So what did you do then, after figuring the hair business wasn’t your thing anymore?

After going over some options through an extensive job search, some job fair attendance, and counseling sessions through vocational rehab programs, my decision was to get re-educated in a different field. After doing some research, I wanted some work online. Writing, perhaps? Maybe some proofreading or forum moderation type work? Maybe the first phases of authoring something – a book or screenplay?

I dabbled a bit in programming and 3D animation projects, which I also enjoyed. But after seeing that I had been lacking in being somewhat tech-savvy as well as lacking basic equipment of my own, these jobs were nearly impossible to acquire. I had done some things on my mom’s computer. But she had limited storage space and no internet where she lived.

How did you cope or adjust to that?

I frequented libraries in my area for several hours per day for PC and internet use. I carried flash drives and CD- Roms with me and tried saving most of my work there. Later on, during a move, those disks and USBs got lost.

(More on that later.)

So when did you get enrolled in school?

Well, it didn’t happen right away. It was a long process for me. At some point after living with my folks a few years (the former homeowners I had rented rooms from, there were falling outs with them, as they were wishing to raise their rates to a level I couldn’t afford. They kicked me out of their homes over petty reasons too, which didn’t help. That deeply hurt me. I had trusted these individuals with consecutive years staying in their care but was considered disposable.), my time there ran out again.

I did everything my parents asked of me, but because of the rural area they lived in and a car I owned breaking down after 10 years of use, it was time for me to live closer to town where I could regularly use bus transit. The only places I could afford then were shelters for women. Some were females only, others were co-ed. It was a scary, uncertain time. But I was promised some job training and help finding work, and a possible set of scholarships to enroll in a vo tech school or business college program. So I applied to live at these places, to take advantage of that offered “help.”

What I found out later, though, is that these alleged “promises” of “job search or placement help” didn’t pan out at all. The staff at these shelters didn’t really care about the residents’ needs. All they offered were crappy meals, a mega-quick shower, and a less than sub-par bunk to sleep on or a floor, in some cases, to stash a bedroll. A resident was mostly on their own when it came to finding work or job training.

Often, other residents would cause problems in the dorms, like bringing in drugs or stealing. Occasionally, folks would get opportunities to volunteer, but this was to continue staying at the shelters. Not to earn monies to rent one’s own place. My volunteering never got any paid work at all. Just more financial hardships and headaches. Mostly I got exploited.

To answer this question of school enrollment, I had to go through a series of several months of couch surfing and brief homelessness, before moving in with disabled folks as a caregiver. They let me live somewhat rent-free if I offered to help a disabled person with day-to-day tasks. Well, okay, I got EBT assistance while doing this, so I could eat. But I still struggled to try to get cash flow.

A year or so of this went by. I got burnout once again! I finally went to my local vo tech center and employment services office and spoke to a career counselor about financial aid. They offered me $3100 to return to an I.T. certification program. I took it!

And how did that go?

It went great at first! A semester in they switched out the instructor for another. I liked the first instructor! He was younger and more fun and great to learn from. The second instructor was older, near retirement, strict from long-term military operations as a translator overseas where he had been stationed, in Eastern Europe. But he was chosen to teach the class. We spent the next 2 years under his authority. And I received 3 CompTIA certs out of it, good for 3 years apiece and recognized globally.

But it was still difficult to get jobs. The certs I earned eventually expired and have not been renewed yet. Sometime after I left my class I found out CompTIA is heavily involved with political lobbyists connected to the fracking industry, who spend this country’s resources creating mass pollution problems. I wasn’t comfortable at all with finding this out.

Why was that?

Some additional financial aid I qualified for as well as promised work upon graduation fell through last minute. I still didn’t have a car then, so the jobs went to students who did. My financial aid package, made up of grants reaching close to $20k, only was minimally refunded to me, once my courses and exam fees were paid for. I had wished to use these funds for housing, either during the last year of enrollment or to put towards housing expenses after graduation.

That money, though I never had to pay any back, wasn’t refunded in full. I got a couple of grand back and that was all I got. I was owed close to $10k, at the very least $7k.

How did that affect you?

Well, my beau of a few years at the time was living on disability. I was his caregiver for that time as well as for others living in our home. He was head of the lease for some of that time. I was head lessee for nearly a year before I left school (planning for some work right out of the gate, when this didn’t come right away, we were devastated. ) My partner, upon my school program wrapping up, lost all of his SSI payments. Also, the residents living with us who were subletting rooms, couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay their share. Consequently, we lost our home. The roommates, the city utilities, and our crooked landlord teamed up and threw us out, as we couldn’t pay the rent or other bills.

The following month we packed what we could into a shopping cart. Put the furniture in an old shed (that didn’t have a lock on it) and made our way to temporary places around town, pushing the buggy everywhere we went.

Needless to say, a few weeks into that, some belongings got stolen. So here we were, thrown out on the streets with barely any personal effects or resources to our name, and most of what we brought with us, (clothing, papers, mail, a PC I had built in my class and brought home, etc.) was stolen! Talk about setbacks.

Wow! How did you cope?

We made some friends who also lived outdoors, in campsites, who we got guidance and protection from. We looked out for each other and each party’s stuff and took some temp jobs, whose managers also screwed us over. Paying us little to nothing, for really long shifts.

My partner worked for a commercial cleaning service, sometimes 20 hour days. I worked a few hours a week as a chauffeur for a client on probation, who had her own car but wasn’t allowed to drive. We each barely earned enough, between the 2 of us, to get a motel room a couple of days each month. Eventually, the small abandoned home we camped behind as well as the little motel we stayed at were demolished about 2 years after we got re-housed. They don’t exist anymore.

OMG…Can’t even imagine.

For the most part, we camped in a tent in the woods until that got torn up, bug-infested, and attacked by raccoons so bad it made us look like litterbugs we despise! Plus, the spiders – oh those spiders and the hidden webs they sprung upon us in the dark…heebie-jeebies just thinking of it!

ARRRGH…hate spiders!

Yes! Glad we got out of there! We also were arrested while living in the woods at that time, camping may be a bit too long. Got 3 grueling days in the pokey and court fines. Never wish for that on anyone.

It took 12 solid months for my beau to get his SSI payments returned to him. About 12 months and a couple of stints as a brief CSR, after getting re-housed, I finally scored an online social media gig! This was part-time, but the somewhat stable paychecks were welcome. And the job was spending a few hours per day learning stuff about businesses on social media, which was fun for me. Now, I was finally getting paid for something I loved to do anyway!

Cool! How did you like doing that gig?

The first year doing that was great. I had pretty stable projects that kept me continually busy. In the second year, another company merged with the company I had been employed with, and the assignments and formatting changed. The work site changed. Now many of us online workers who are employed here are oftentimes unable to pass work qualification processes or access our work.

I think it’s a thing with the client being dissatisfied or a tech team series of careless programming errors. Regularly, there are tests that don’t pass, links to information that don’t load (or do a series of too many redirects), or work assignments that don’t make it to the project portals. So the last year has been challenging with these things.

How do you make money then?

Well, consequently I still live partially on my beau’s SSI check, plus I get a few surveys per month. But that doesn’t earn a lot, just a few dollars or so. When work does come in, I get anything from 10-20 hours per week. But lately, this is rare.

Do you have any backup options?

I have other freelancer accounts out to offer service, attempting to sell data entry, writing, or editing services. I am also beginning to educate myself in the real estate investment industry, which is fun.

But I haven’t gotten but a few prospects and no buyers yet. Those that inquire about me usually attempt to defraud workers in some way. It has been challenging again dealing with this. Thankfully, the sites I use are somewhat good about nabbing these fraudsters. So that part’s cool.

But I just need some buyers now! I am currently on Freelancer.com and Fiverr also responding to forums and blog posts on a site called BiggerPockets.com. Come look for me!

Any future endeavors?

I have 2 months, in particular, to earn a few grand or so freelancing, pay some debts, and make some travel plans to go back home. I have a 25th class reunion event coming up that I really can’t miss! After that, I just hope to keep freelancing and working from home and maybe begin writing that book!

About the Author: Jana Prevatt resides in Ocala, FL and currently lives with my longtime beau, 1 roommate and his black cat, Axel. 

To hear more stories of people who were out-of-work and how they returned to earning a living, along with practical tips for your own career comeback, check out:

Out-of-Work to Making Money, 21 Comeback Stories Every Job Hunter Should Hear