Because of my low income I have qualified for Low Income Veteran's pension (~$980/m) and I have been receiving this minimum income support since first quarter of 2000, I fell bellow the minimum income requirements since second quarter 1999 and when I found out that I can get this help I applied for it. Low Income Veterans pension guarantees veterans a minimum income every month, but if you earn money you have to report it to the VA and it will be taken out of your future Low Income Veterans pension benefits. I have to report all income including gifts. This low income VA support is not enough to pay for everything in life, and when I ran out of money (after paying my bills) I went to food banks for food, I stod at gas stations with my 6 gallon gas can and gladly accepted gas donations intended for my Motor Home. I sometimes asked for one dollar loans from total strangers to buy something to eat from the 99 cent menu selection in fast food restaurants, all of this extra income has to be reported to the Veterans Administration because it will eventually get deducted from my future Low Income Veterans benefits.

Expenses for job interviews in the past, before I received the Low Income Veterans Pension were funded by loans from my Dad and grants by the actual companies that invited me to the job interviews. As of 04.JULY.2002 I opened my Independent I.T. Consulting business and fuel expenses for my Motor Home would have been paid by my customers when I would need to visit their work site. Before the VA started to help me financialy I was living on loans from my Dad which helped me keep making the 400 dollar monthly payments on my Motor Home and travel to job interviews while being very poor at the same time. Hopefully my finances will improve soon to where I can start repaying loans that I borrowed from my Dad since second quarter 1999. (~$27000 USD) While I was living in my Motor Home the inability to pay for legitimate RV parking space at RV parks made me feel very homeless, specially if I was completely out of money at the same time, which was the most important ingredient to feeling very homeless. Provided that I would have had plenty of money to pay for things then the permanent Motor Home lifestyle without a real house or land of my own would not have felt like a homeless person's lot in life because I would have been home everywhere where I could have payed for legitimate RV parking where these Motor Homes legitimately hook up to water, sewer and electricity.

Later on if my finances improve well enough I would like to build a nice two story octagon shaped house. Building my house has been my dream for a long time and once complete I would always have a legitimate place to park a Motor Home if I should ever buy another one again. Of course I would never borrow money to buy land and build my dream house from a loan, that would be stupid, instead I plan to earn and save the money or purchase incrementaly. I will only buy land and build my dream house as I can afford it, I do not intend to mortgage my future by building something nice and risk loosing it all because I borrowed the money to build it. For the time being I will very likely go live on a sailboat, one that I will build myself because it will cost about the same to build a 40ft catamaran cruiser as the permit fees and taxes associated with building my dream house.

Tibor G. Balogh