This is basically the same for me. I kinda know how it feels, despite me living in a different country. If you can't make a living from it, you only cut yourself. My experience is that most people seem to have trouble understanding this dilemma.
Your art is amazing. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I'm on SSI myself. From what I have been told. People on SSI can work, but they can't work for so many hours or make more then what their SSI is. That's what I've been told.

If social security is anything like it's here in Finland, you might be able to have some income up to a certain limit. I don't for sure how that works in the US though, so you guys might wanna look it up.

Well I've been disabled all my life and what I've said in my OR has been told to me as I've been growing up and being an adult now. It still stands.

There's other reasons to dislike or distrust Patreon as it is: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6903571/ In short, people can apparently scam you from getting the money by canceling payments after making huge pledges.

Personally I don't like the idea of making Patreon because I don't want to make any rewards that would constrain or let people decide what I could or should draw, and I don't like the idea of making Patreon for just tips.

(its late but...)

Patreon in few moments create something like wall "Have cash or Dont have cash"
What means if you have casg - herer is all exclusive material and arts what i make for patreon.
And if dont - Hmmmm sorry man...i gonna upload something from time to time...hope you understand...

i seen something like that 2-4 times :/

Personally, if I was to ever make a Patreon account, it would be used to supplement any money I earned...

...and most importantly, it would NOT be used as a pay wall to prevent people from viewing my art, because "fuck you, give me money."

I really dislike how Patreon is being abused. Some artists use it well - giving simple perks like progress sketches, timed exclusivity on pictures or Patron-exclusive livestream events. Then there are artists who use it to pay wall their art, post heavily censored (aka barely visible behind giant "P" logos) thumbnails on their public sites with the oh so "patreon-izing" comment of "if you want to see the full picture, go to my Patreon account and..." (you guessed it) "...FUCK YOU, GIVE ME MONEY!".

I really feel it's a major slap in the face of anyone who supported the artist before they decided that their fanbase mattered as anything other than a resource to make money through pay sites/pay walls. I like to point out to those artists that, without the fanbase that has watched, supported and spread the word to others (thus expanding the fanbase) that without them, there's no way they could make any money off of simple commission work, let alone making a Patreon account... so it's oh so nice of them to lock their content away from their fans unless, of course, they give them what matters to them - money.

And then people find out ways to break Patreon... either cancelling pledges after they get the content or someone making a website to leak the content... so the artists begin flipping their shit, because someone's getting to see their shit for free! OH FUCKING NO! Sure, their "income" is being hurt... but so were their fans that decided to take this course of action in the first place.

Funny thing is that the Patreon users who don't paywall their content barely have a shit to give about sites/actions like this, mainly because it doesn't effect them nearly as much - the final version was going to be shown eventually and those who supported the artist via Patreon did it because they wanted to, not because they needed to.

Anyways, Patreon rant over. I'm sure someone will read this and get pissy... Not really surprised - I tend to have unpopular opinions.

As for your situation, I hope that you can at least make commissions on occasion. I would research to see if it's possible at all to supplement your SSI with odd jobs or not. If so, do what you can. I hope things turn out better for you down the road as well ^-^d

Wow.
I'm sorry about your family Atariboy.

There is always askign for mail in cash, if you are comfortable of giving your address.

You can open up a bank account it not that hard. Takes like 25.00 to start it. As for the rules you can make extra money but only to a level that allows before they start eating in to your check. They won't just take it away. So say you get $500.00 for example, you make 50.00 from Partron that won't effect your check at all cause is so small. If your like making 500.00 a month than yes there no reason they will keep you on. You just need to know the rules, that all, it pretty simple. :) Hope that helps. Oh also, paypal is free to open.

Kudos for being legit though. Most people would just open a patreon and holler about stuff when they got cut.

:(
sorry to hear that man; That's a shame, you'd probably have a ton of customers for paypal commissions if you were able to do that (hell, I was even about to ask if you did them before I read your journal)