Don't worry too much about references. Tell people at interviews you left your last job because the environment was toxic. There's no shame in that.

GitHub is good. Make a habit of making your work public. Go to meet ups and talk to people directly: job interview is not the only way to get a job.

Use your writing and your code as your cv. It's better than any other cv.

Don't fixate in this idea that if you don't have a degree then you're not worth a damn . If you were a doctor I'd say , yeah ok. But programming is not that . If you could prove you could do open heart surgery more effectively than most surgeons then why wouldn't I let you operate on me? Such proof outstanding , doctors need degrees. Programmers have very solid proof outside the degree .