when my mother died, i went to live with my grandfather. i was about 8 years old. when i went to live with my grandfather, i didnt do well in school. my mother had just passed away. i remember i started skipping school. also, during that time my grandfather became physically abusive and slapped me across the face when i did something i wasnt supposed to do. granted, what i did, i wasnt supposed to do, but his response was to slap me. i fell on the bed after he hit me. shortly after that happened, i moved into foster care. that was pretty much the last time i actually saw my grandfather. i saw him a couple of other times but for a short period of time. also during the short time i lived with my grandfather, i remember reaching out to a cousin i had who lived in austin at the time. i was like 8 years old but i was wanted to spend time with the family member. the problem is , that family member was a heavy drug user. so they offered to sell me drugs and they asked me to ask some of my friends if they wanted drugs. remember, i was 8 years old and was living with my grandfather, etc. so, i asked some of my friends if they wanted any drugs and a couple of them agreed to it. at this point, i had never tried any drugs myself. but anyway, i told my family member a couple of my friends wanted drugs. and guess what happened, my family member drove all the way from austin to where i was to give me the drugs. i dont remember how long the family member stayed. anyway, the next day at school, i gave the drugs to my 2 friends. and guess what happened. the 2 friends told their parents that they were given drugs by me, and guess what happened next. the school was told about it and then sent a police officer to ask me about the situation. and it wasnt until i saw the police officer that i realized it was considered drug sales and things like that. so, the only thing that happened to me was that they put me in one handcuff and then let me go. but anyway, i was skipping school and because of that they tried to tell me that my grades were slipping and that i had to take classes over or whatever. anyway, i wound up moving to a different school district. in the next school district i didnt care about school either i guess. now that i have been homeless on and off for ten years, looks like to get housing the only way someone will qualify for housing is if they have a disability i guess. i dont have any registered disabilities but according to the voucher system, i have enough of some kind of issue to get housing. it says on the voucher that it is for formerly disabled homeless invidividuals. but i dont have a registered disability. so, i asked them how i was able to get the voucher, but they didnt explain how. they gave me a "working diagnosis" of an "unspecified stress disorder". i thought i would qualify for housing simply because i have been homeless for a long time, but they threw in the term disability on the voucher. so, i told them, i was not sure how i would qualify for a voucher based on that.