GoFundMe Update
An Update from My GoFundMe that you can find by clicking here
Happy New Year kind ones!
I am overdue for an update, so here I go, but warning: lots of chaos.
New Year's Eve presented me with the worst gift from my landlord: a 3-month Termination Notice. So....according to the document, I have to find a new place before March 31st.
Some problems with this:
1) she isn't legally renting the apartment, claiming it as a family home, and I am assuming that is why she's refused to give me an updated copy of the lease; even when I needed it to prove residency for health insurance.
2) if I don't have a lease....3-month Termination of....what precisely?
3) Rent costs have been a nightmare as I've tried to find employment, but the lack of safe housing due to the wasps ironically helped me out since I had paid for a month of a safe place to live and had not received that. I am guessing she figured it is cheaper to get rid of me than the wasps, and so she's terminated me instead of them.
4) As implied, she gave no reason for this notice. And I have no idea if that's legally required. Honestly, lots of mess that sounds illegal, but my capacity is so low. No one moves into an apartment thinking "one day I'll need lawyers," but people who buy property certainly do! So she has the high ground in so many respects, and I just feel paralyzed in fear.
5) She refused my payment on December 31st, casually leaving it facedown my welcome mat, with all my bank info ready for the taking. I texted her acting like maybe it was an accident and that I put it back in the drop box for her....
5.5) ...no payment from tenants makes it easier for landlords to evict them and to do so more quickly, so I'm terrified that's why she tried to return the check.
6) As I wait to hear back from the free public legal consultants, I started a job!! I've applied to hundreds since living here, as I was caught in two rounds of COVID-related cutbacks (the working from home cut, and the returning to the office cut). And I am lucky to have been offered a job at all....but it is minimum wage and part-time - with fewer benefits and only a dollar per hour more than my first job out of college. It sucks to have good news as I try to make peace with the direction society is taking me (who else regrets their bachelor's degree??) only to need to jump back into the double-dutch game of finding another job because:
6) IT TAKES A KING'S RANDOM TO MOVE.
I've spent everything I have saved, used up all of my 401k, my credit card is maxed out beyond what I thought its limit was - and all of this was done in efforts to survive. It's gone to medical expenses, housing costs, precautions to avoid getting "the plague," and maybe the occasional coffee or new pen to feel like I have something special.
That's it.
And it's worked. I'm still here.
Only now I need all of it back to afford the first, last, and security for a new place, probably a fee for not having anyone to co-sign for me (our society really loves people having parents), and movers, since there is no way I can physically carry my belongings out the door let alone to a new apartment.
For over a decade now, my personal mantra has been "go where you're wanted" and that's definitely not here. But I can't afford to leave.
In any case, that is my update.
I wish it were better news.
I wish I weren't asking for help.
I wish I could survive in this society as a disabled individual without there being so much red tape to cross and flaming hoops to jump through.
And I also wish that the inherent nature of this GoFundMe wasn't me asking you to sacrifice some of where you've succeeded and I have not.
But it is and I thank you.
I thank you for reading this, I thank you for helping me survive through all of this chaos, for the courage you've given me, and the compassion you have shown. You are reading this because you've believed in me. Invested in seeing me succeed. And despite all of the calamity, I will make you proud.
Please pass GFM along to anyone you think could help or empathize, and I will keep pushing forward, day by day.
My love,
H