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Hey loves! Here’s my current situation: to put it quickly and frankly, I’m in need of help.
If you want the TL;DR: My partner and I, both disabled freelancers, were unable to save up to move during the pandemic. Now that pandemic protections have lifted, our apartments very suddenly raised the rent by $350 , which we absolutely can’t afford and frankly is unfair to charge for the state of disrepair the apartment and entire neighborhood is in. After our next rent check clears we won’t have any money at all to move out anywhere– whether that be to another apartment or to share a place with someone else. We’re in desperate need of help to get out of here, and because we don’t have any delinquent rent charges, the local housing programs are unable to offer us any relief. We have to find a place to go and safely leave with our cats.
At the end of this letter, there will be links to my shop and other art sharing websites where you can purchase items if you’re uncomfortable donating without anything in return, as well as links to things you can share to help me out if you can’t financially assist at this time. The rest of this letter is just the more detailed explanation of the summary above.
Because of our own health and the pandemic, my partner and I had to quit our outside jobs at its beginning and switch to freelance work to pay our bills. The protections put in place during the pandemic prevented our landlords (who are a corporation/company, not individuals) from raising our rent or kicking us out based on our means of income. However, those protections have lifted and the situation has changed. For further context on our situation, we also lost access to a vehicle during the pandemic and have only recently been able to use the very-recently-obtained car of our roommate, who will also have to leave as a result of our housing situation. Though she will be helping us as much as she can during this transition, myself and my partner do not have any other access to a vehicle and have not had access to a vehicle since 2020.
Our apartment has kind of been shitty to live in, and has changed management/ownership at least twice since the time we moved here in 2019. Things that haven’t changed since move-in include the many repair that were needed upon move-in (such as a broken sliding glass back door that has to be taped shut because it doesn’t lock, two bedrooms with nonfunctioning light fixtures, a damaged closet door frame that had to be ripped out to replace the water heater that caught fire, a bathtub with a stuck drain pulley so that it does not drain even when unclogged, and a bathroom downstairs that cannot be used because it was never properly cleaned of hazardous material when a block-wide sewage backup caused its toilet to overflow and sink into the floor and baseboards). We are also often told when our maintenance team will only be available for emergencies thanks to COVID, but we are never informed when they are available again to perform those other repairs, and when trying to have those repairs addressed under prior management we were repeatedly ignored.
Despite all this, we have been unable to make the money needed to leave while also continuing to pay our rent here.
We were under the impression that we would be given our recertification documents at the beginning of May to have time to prepare for any changes, however we waited and waited and were not given the recertification documents as we were promised. When I let our apartment managers know that we had not received the documents and asked for an extension to get them signed, I was met with an explanation that they had been sent, and after explaining again that we never received them, another copy was finally sent. This copy came with a warning message that if we did not recertify by May 31st, we would be expelled from the apartments by July 31st, and that a $150 month-to-month fee would be added to our rent.
However, if we were to recertify, the cost of our rent would jump from $899 to $1248. We already struggle to pay our rent on our freelancing income alone, and due to the pandemic, untreated mental illness and disability, we have struggled to get outside work during the pandemic time. I myself was recently presented with an opportunity to apply for a work-from-home company that, should I be hired, would make me able to pay the $900-range rent on my own, but the training takes a few months and I would not be hired in time to handle this financial burden. There is no way we would be able to get hired and paid in the time it would take to be able to pay a $300 increase on our rent, and a $150 increase is a major hit as well.
We have been trying to save up to move for a year now, but business has not brought in enough to both pay our bills *and* save up. We’re still paying off bills from May and April because in April I injured my arm and was unable to work as much, and we won’t have anything after our next rent bill hits. We do not have the money to move out of here on our own, whether we go live with others or are able to find a new apartment.
That’s why we are turning to the internet for help. We have several plans dependent on what options become available to us; staying at an extended stay with our pets until we are approved for a less expensive apartment, or if we are approved for an apartment before June, we would like to have the money to pay not only the move-in fees but also to offer to pay for the first few months of rent up front, as we do not have the necessary non-self-employment work history to secure a place by normal means (In our state, income worth 2x the rent price is required to get most apartments.) We will be lucky enough to have cosigners if such a move-in plan is approved, but first we need to have the money to actually leave.
We are scrimpers and savers, already planning to get rid of much of our stuff to make this as easy as possible, and are low-balling a goal of $3k. We will make whatever we can get work, but feel we will be safe if we can just make that goal, as $3k would be able to pay the application fees on a different low-income apartment in our area as well as at least a month of rent while still leaving enough money to rent a vehicle to move out.
Anything you could give would help, but we would be unable to pay back any loans at present, at least without a promising employment opportunity on the horizon. So, if you would prefer, I’d like to direct you to my shop where you can purchase stickers, dice bags, or soon, prints, to help us meet our goals. After my current commissions are complete, I will also be able to offer more commissions, though they may have to be at a higher price than usual.
Sharing my social medias where I post my art and sales will also be incredibly helpful to me in this time, if you are unable to assist us monetarily.
You can find links to all my art-social media at the linktree that I made for my birthday. If I have the time, I'll soon reformat that linktree to be less... obnoxious, sorry.
Thank you if you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your concern and well-wishes even if you are unable to support me at this time.
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