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In Reply to: How much rent does Barney charge SGAs? posted by Curious on July 27, 2002 at 08:16:28:
Answering here from recent personal experience, as my 23 year old Son, Christian just finished a stint at Laurelhome.
Just for some background. Christian was born in the Family. I raised him from the time he was two. While still in High School, he joined the Army National Guard, and went to work for me at my company cleaning carpet for trade show booths.
At some point, he got an offer from the Army to take a full time Civilian job at a base in Northern California. He quit his job with me, moved out of his apartment, and headed north. When he got there, they told him that the job wasn't going to happen because of funding cuts.
So, he found himself jobless and homeless all of a sudden. He came back home, and I put him back to work. Then, last summer, he decided to go to work for a resort up in the Sierras where we have gone on vacation since he was a little kid. He worked the entire summer up there, and then right at the end, he was coming back to the resort one night, fell asleep at the wheel and drove his truck off a cliff.
Then the summer was over, and he returned jobless, homeless and without a vehicle. He came back to live on our couch, and, once again, I put him back to work on the carpet pile at SDC.
Tradeshows are seasonal, and we lay everyone off after November. So, he was looking at being on the full combination soon (jobless, homeless, carless). And then one day, he called me up at the office and told me he was going to go live at Barney's.
Now, I've been impressed by Barney's work, having been to Laurelhome myself, but I do have to confess that my heart kind of sank. I also pictured myself being some kind of indentured servant at NDN because my son was not being held hostage in Maryland.
I think I told him something like, "If you do this, you are on your own, Barney and I get into really serious arugments all the time, and I quit NDN about once every two months. I'M NOT GOING TO STOP QUITTING NDN JUST BECAUSE YOU LIVE AT BARNEY'S".
He said, "Okay".
Still, I'm imagining him sleeping with eight or nine Brazillian girls a night, and I'm going to end up rasing fifteen grandkids out of this. All the stuff you guys say ran through my mind, and suddenly it all sounded more true than it had ten minutes before.
I figured that once he saw how much a plane ticket would cost, he would change his mind. But, Southwest had a click and save special from Burbank to Baltimore for something like $89.00.
I finally had to get that he's 23, and one of his biggest problems is that his Mom and Dad were always bailing him out of trouble. Maybe it was time to put some distance between us. And, afterall, if it really turned to crap, I could always send him a plane ticket home.
So, here is what I know from talking to my Son:
"I read here that Barney takes in SGAs to his house and helps them but that he charges them pretty high rent. How high is this rent, anyone know? "
Christian paid $75.00 per week. He came with enough money to pay the first month.
"Is there a grace period for the first 2-3 months while they're getting backon their feet when they pay no rent?"
When he didn't get a job right away, and I think Barney let him live there for a couple of months free until he could find a job. I don't know if this is S.O.P., but that's how it worked. I don't know if he paid Barney back for those months, I hope he did.
"Does Barney help them get jobs or do they continue car-washing & ballooning to earn money?"
He did help Christian find a job at Home Depot. Christian told me that one of the people in the home invited him to go clowning or ballooning once, and he told them, "No thanks, I'm a normal person". They didn't ask again, and he was never under any pressure to do any of that.
"I'm not saying Barney isn't helping SGAs at all (let's be glad for anyone who does anything)but what's thedifference between an SGA leaving the Family & working to pay their own rent and leaving the Family & working to pay rent to Barney?"
First, last, security deposit, secure employement and a credit rating. I don't yet, but many employers check your credit rating before they will give you a job. They might not tell you that you didn't get the job due to a poor (or missing) credit report, but I can tell you that this is how it works a lot of places these days. Plus, many landlords just won't rent to young people due to bad experiences in the past. Again, they can't legally tell you this, they just give rent to someone else with good credit and a long job history instead. It's not impossible, it's just difficult.
"Is it just the communal environment he offers?"
For some who have never known anything else, it might be. For my son the practical aspects were what attracted him. He could show up, move in, get established locally, and move out. He still hasn't replaced the truck. He told me they call him "Blade" at work, and I imagined him showing up with some kid of switch blade. Then he explained that they call him blade because he skates to work on his roller blades (more pictures in my mind of compound fractures).
"Since SGAs have e-mail contact with each other, when the leave why don't they just share housing, work and pay rent? I bet some ofthem do."
I would imagine that this is more commond than moving into Barney's house, or Barney would have several thousand people living with him. The Family I am most close with (who are in the Family) have three sons who have left, and they all live together in an apartment an help each other out. Their sister lives with an uncle (real uncle, not the other kind) in another state. All that is possible, but I do think it is fortunate that there are alternatives.
