I'm a perl developer who is fairly desperate for work. I can only telecommute.

I don't know your situation completely, but if you can sell yourself as a contract worker who would prefer to work at home (for whatever reason) after a 'warming up' period in the office (perhaps 4-6 weeks), that could work for an employer. After that, you could plan to come into the office a couple of days a month, perhaps on a regular basis (every other Tuesday), or perhaps as required (OK, I'm wrapping up project X, let's get together to discuss project Y).

I'm sure employers would be flexible ...