I was facing a similar situation. I had planed to move back to MN in Aug and needed to get rid of a lot of stuff to keep moving cost down, but then I just decided it was all too much in too short a time. I'll move next year. I have sec 8 already and it is great, if I didn't have it I would be homeless. The hard part is I have to move my stuff to my mothers house and stay with her or my daughter and look for a place after I move, I'll have 60 days to find a place. So after you get HUD help it may be possible to move back closer to your family too.
I'm still planning on taking a lot of books and DVD's to half price books. I have thousands of books! I'm just going to spread it out a bit more and make it more manageable. I do have a male cousin in a town not too far away who has offered to help me transport the bigger stuff & books(thank goodness) to consignment stores could your brother help do that?