It really sounds to me like things were genuinely toxic between Jake and his mom, with her "controlling" everything (down to his clothes -- this was pre-transition larp, so I'm guessing she wouldn't let him wear filthy sweatpants in public or criticized him for the coolie hat and similar incidents). It sounds like she really tried to make him leave the attic and brush his teeth from time to time, if nothing else. Anyway, I'm guessing the "friends of his abuser" who "sat him down" and told him to flee (while also not allowing him to come live with them) were family members who where concerned for
her, not
him. And then when he didn't make any effort towards getting a job and moving out, and yet still continued to fight with and bitch about his mother, someone rightly pointed out that she couldn't be
that bad if he was making excuses for why he couldn't leave her, and maybe he should mellow out and show some respect to his only means of support.
The other interesting thing to me is the reference to "scary live-in caregivers". I'm not sure exactly how things work in Connecticut, but for Jake to even be aware of group homes and supportive living situations (which is what this sounds like) suggests to me that he's not been totally forthright about the degree to which social services is aware of him and has been involved with him. It would certainly explain all his "appointments," if he's regularly meeting with social workers. I wonder if Mama was getting some sort of stipend for caring for her living abortion all those years. I also wonder if he was moved into Crocker House temporarily by family/some sort of emergency welfare fund because the situation with Rachel was getting out of hand, and only stayed there while he worked his way up the waiting list for subsidized housing or the application for the voucher made its way through the system. Because Crocker House was fairly nice, but his new place (while definitely livable) does have a bit of a "low income housing" aesthetic.
I did find
this site that gives some information about public housing/section eight subsidies in the area. Evidently, as a low-income earner, he could get a housing voucher for up to $1100/month. According to that site, the average person in the program pays $400 out of pocket in addition to the voucher, which (again according to that site) would easily get him a one bedroom apartment in the area. That would make his Patreon make more sense -- $1000 from that plus $1100 housing voucher and suddenly he's able to make rent and pay for groceries. But according to my reading of the situation, he also has to have that Patreon income, not only to make ends meet but to qualify for the subsidy. We've speculated before that he asks friends and family to "donate" to his Patreon rather than to him directly, and that might be why. If this is the case, it's a mixed blessing since living independently is generally a good thing, and this scheme would keep him one step away from effectively being a ward of the state. On the other hand, it allows him to continue being himself and steadily decline into complete insanity. (The best-case scenario for him would actually be a group home, imo, where someone can cut off his internet at midnight and make him touch grass from time to time. Of course, he'd insist on being treated as a woman, and I would prefer he not be housed with mentally-disabled or otherwise vulnerable women. So I guess he can just rot into his computer chair. It's really no big loss to the world.)
Jake's finances have always been a bit intriguing to me, because he's certainly not living independently off his Patreon alone, and yet his Patreon itself also can't possibly be made up
purely by strangers who give him money to do nothing. He must be getting some support from family/taxpayers who give him money to do nothing. Maybe at the height of Gamergate, but it's been years since Jake was even marginally relevant and even longer since he's produced anything but interminable Googleshngs.
