I've had the same landlord for 21 years but am in the third building of his because he keeps turning his rental buildings into fancy condos priced at like $600,000.00 per unit. Each time I have only a month's notice to get out, even though the law says I should have longer they make the building unlivable what with all the noise from tearing up empty apartments. The rent goes up every year, while my income has been going down (I'm self-employed and the gigs I depend on have been drying up owing to the economy, and because of my age it's been hard finding other employment). I'm petrified he'll sell this building. I don't have money for a move. I don't have good credit for a move (owing to a bankruptcy a few years ago, in part because of medical bills). It used to be that we could share apartments and split the rent, but now they put into the leases that if someone moves in the rent goes up astronomically, so it doesn't help. I'm so lucky to still have a roof over my head, but am dreading the day I don't. And I don't have a car to move into. I see the homeless riding buses all day when it's snowing and freezing. Overhear their phone calls as they try to get into shelters. It doesn't have to be this way. You carry all this shame for being poor, even though you're doing good work. It's just you're paid less and less for it. And that's not your fault. But it feels like it is.