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In 2017 I thought my period of disability related homelessness was
over as I moved into senior and disabled housing. Unfortunately after
just two weeks I was already feeling much much sicker and soon needed
a wheelchair where I had previously been able to walk at least a few
blocks.
My doctor was sure the building had mold and I said it must not
because I kept the dehumidifier running and humidity below 50%. I did
my very best to make that inhospitable building a home because after
years of hustling for a new place to sleep every night, I was dead
tired. But I became sicker and sicker and recently I did start to
smell mold - in specific spots at first but then I realized it was
coming OUT of my dehumidifier and OUT of my air purifiers. I even
bought uv light bulbs and a new air filter but I was SO sick. Every
breath made my eyes, nose, throat, and lungs BURN, and my all over
pain was through the roof.
Now River and I are homeless together - trying to remain off the
streets and staying in air bnbs that are better but not perfect for
healing - especially since I don’t know where I will be sleeping just
days from now.
Most essential help is a mold free, mcas safe (fragrance free) covid safe for us to stay until we can sort out using our housing voucher, somewhere to stay for cheap or free for 1 to 3 months.
If you don’t have that, would you consider contributing so we can stay in the air bnbs or sublets we can find?
- Please read the ever changing ”More Ways to Help” tab to find
easy, practical ways to support us.
Please give as much as you can give without feeling resentful or doing yourself harm. - Please share some words of encouragement with your gift.
- Please share this fundraiser far and wide. Tell your friends why it is important to give. If you know a media contact of influencer who can share my story, please message me directly!
Who is this for?
How your Gifts Will Help
- Right now I am in pure survival mode - which is unfortunately associated with hemorahging money! Your prior donations have helped me escape the mold apartment building, but they’re all gone now. Whatever you donate now will go to cover my credit card bills currently around $5,600. Once we get past that, raising another $10,000 could help me rent somewhere safe for 2 months so I can start mold recovery and plan next steps.
- If I can raise about $24,000, I can afford to relocate to somewhere safe for my body and live for 6 months to a year paying market rate rent without being harassed, abused, or poisoned by my home. Once I get to a location that doesn’t make me sick and establish residency, I can either try to use my section 8 housing benefits or to apply for a local homeownership program through a community land trust, Habitat for Humanity, or a downpayment grant or loan program. The major drawback here is that these programs are not disability accessible and I will need to do so much more fund raising to keep surviving.
- If I can raise around $160,000 I can afford to build or purchase an electric(hopefully) powered tiny home on wheels that can be my mobile safe space. I have a condition called mcas and I am highly reactive to petroleum products so I hope to avoid them but given how few options I have, I may end up choosing life in a gas powered vehicle over life on the streets. This option would allow me to visit a wider variety of locations over a longer period of time. This would allow me to try out various communities and find my best forever home. Aside from the gas/electric question, a major drawback here is that my emotional support animal may not adapt to life on the road. River has been doing fairly ok with our abrupt flight but they aren’t eating and that’s not sustainable. If I can locate a safe yard where I can park most of the year, that would be a huge help!
- If I can raise $300,000 I can buy property that will serve as safe forever housing to myself and other queer disabled people. So many of us who are unable to work through no fault of our own are unable to afford housing that meets our access needs. I need and want community in order to be happy and healthy, so this is my ultimate, most heartfelt goal.
Why is this necessary?
What Others Are Saying
sound on for this video: visual is River and Rabbit cuddling. audio is a friend’s testimonial
‘Rabbit is a sweet, conscientious person who is being cruelly failed by medicine and care agencies. I would love to have a way to help Rabbit get into safe housing.”
What can We do for Free? This is changing and I am editing as I am able!
- Sharing this fundraiser is at least half of the struggle! Please share widely and share often as the process unfolds. If you happen to know a blogger, podcaster, influencer, or media person who has a following, please ask them if they are willing to interview me or share a link to my story.
Things That Would Help Rabbit Survive:
Company in person or via telepresence
-Company in good humor - laugh with me about the trials of life, spend time near me wherever I am and help me to feel less alienated from the world
-Deeply engaged conversation about what I am facing, various ideas I have and back and forth processing what sounds like a good idea. It helps if you know me or are willing to learn enough to know me well enough to say what you see as aligned with my values. You can offer practical support such as posting wishlist or making other inquiries, or just focus on the present.
Embodied Help
(to share air with me please be fragrance free,
smoke free, and masking)
-helpers who can pick up and drop off supplies, help me get donations, do laundry, get stuff for my cat etc (contactless is ok)
-rides to look at sublets, vehicles for sale and so on
-Road trip buddy from Canada to bay area or Bay area to Palm Springs
-Help researching options such as campgrounds and cabins, hot springs, places to rent with section 8
Temporary Housing (long term is great too but may not be needed)
-A mold free backyard tiny house or in law unit in east bay you’d let
me rent for cheap for a few months - either in East Bay or somewhere
arid with access to nature
-A fragrance Free, mold free, covid
cautious room in your house I could use for cheap for a few
months
-Leads on friends or family you may have who might have a
backyard where they would let me construct a tiny house or a
freagrance free, mcas safe, covid safe room in their space
-Leads
on friends or family who participate in intentional community where
they may be able to ask if I could stay there or become a
participating member of community
-An address at a place that is mold free where someone could act as my “official address” and receive mail (or packages especially as I replace belongings) and drive or send it on to me
Financial
-A personal loan of about $8,000 to $10,000 to be
repaid in $300/month increments interest free
-Leads on good
places to get an auto loan
-Donations towards hotels, or towards
vehicle purchase
-Paypal or Venmo direct donations
-Buys off
of Amazon wish List
-Help editing this fundraiser
-Sharing of fundraiser without
donating
-donate publicly and share fundraiser
*Asking everyone you know if they can find any of the above*
- Pop over to the above tab “Help for Free” (under “More” dropdown on mobile) to see the full list of community asks.
How Bad Are Current Conditions?
Why So Expensive?
Can We Do This?
Perks
Highlights
See all activity39No Stone Unturned
At the start, I was focused simply on helping them avoid the worst outcomes. Rabbit, though, always had a brighter vision in sight. Through in-depth independent research, they identified a greater, proactive goal: to move out of the building altogether, to a home where they could live without jeopardizing their short and long-term health on a daily basis, where they could proactively address their access needs and take the space and time to recover from the tolls of their current living situation.
Through all this, I was an observer and a comrade in Rabbit’s remarkable ingenuity -- with the few spoons they had each day, some days more and some less, they eked out progress. They speak truth to power and hold officials accountable to the lofty aims of the programs they administer. Rabbit’s compassion for neighbors and community members is evident in their well researched resource lists, efforts to help organize neighbors to stand up for their rights, and their mutual support for myself as I developed community contacts and resource information that are a long term benefit to those accessing peer support where I was working.
Despite their deep well of determination, Rabbit has been stymied at every stage of the process. The management in their apartment building still regularly violates their reasonable accommodations, requiring constant work and push back from Rabbit. Even though Rabbit identified their ability to convert a project-based voucher from their RAD unit into a tenant-based Section 8 voucher and backed it up with guidance and legal codes from HUD manuals, they had to fight simply to get the housing authority to acknowledge that they had this right.
In countless other cases, Rabbit has been turned away from organizations that seem to work on the issues they face but don't end up delivering effective assistance on their issues. I say this to emphasize that they have turned over every stone, they have advocated for themself in all the ways imaginable, and yet they remain in housing that continues to sap their life away, in housing their doctor has urged them to leave as soon as it becomes possible.
The housing system in San Francisco, California, and the US broadly, has entirely failed Rabbit time and time again. It is now up to you, and those you know to rally your support and make a healthy home possible for Rabbit before the last of their determination to survive in defiance of a hostile system is completely used up. In countless ways, Rabbit has paid their dues to society, and while I believe they would continue to be generous with their gifts regardless of whether they receive anything back, Rabbit needs help urgently in order to survive. I have witnessed how taxing the fight to obtain help is for Rabbit, combined with the detrimental living conditions, this has left them with empty reserves. Please give as much as you can, please share this fundraiser on social media and with any members of the media you know who can bring attention to Rabbit’s story.
Many Ways to Help
Friends and unmet friends alike, There are ways you can help and some are almost free. If you’d like to consider those, read on!
Things That Would Help Rabbit Survive:
Temporary Housing or Sublet for under $2500/month
Most essential help is a mold free, mcas safe (fragrance free) covid safe for us to stay until we can sort out using our housing voucher, somewhere to stay for cheap or free for 1 to 3 months.
If you don’t have that, would you consider contributing so we can stay in the air bnbs or sublets we can find?
Company in person or via telepresence
- -Company in good humor - laugh with me about the trials of life, spend time near me wherever I am and help me to feel less alienated from the world
- -Deeply engaged conversation about what I am facing, various ideas I have and back and forth processing what sounds like a good idea. It helps if you know me or are willing to learn enough to know me well enough to say what you see as aligned with my values. You can offer practical support such as posting wishlist or making other inquiries, or just focus on the present.
Embodied Help - To share air with me please be fragrance free, smoke free, and masking.
- An address at a place that is mold free where someone could act as my “official address” and receive mail (or packages especially as I replace belongings) and drive or send it on to me (this one can be done contactless)
- Live in Caregiver - fragrance free and contagion cautious - someone who wants to live with me using my housing voucher. This can be done multiple ways (including the person helping on paper only) but obviously we need to get along and communicate well.
- Mold salvage help - folks who can enter my old apartment and demo/ save some things (ok if not fragrance free, helps if you have a yard or safe place to wash moldy stuff)
- helpers who can pick up and drop off supplies, help me get donations, do laundry, get stuff for my cat etc (contactless is ok)
- Cuddle friends and massage therapy - contagion and fragrance free visitors good at consent based safe, non sexual touch
- rides to look at sublets, vehicles for sale and so on
- Road trip buddy from Canada to bay area or Bay area to Palm Springs or similar spot
- Help researching options such as motels, campgrounds and cabins, hot springs, places to rent with section 8
- Fundraising help! join the team and help me edit my fundraiser and promote it
Housing
- Benevolent housing for free or low rent with my cat in a home that meets my needs (A fragrance Free, mold free, covid cautious room in your house I could use for free or cheap for a few months
- An inexpensive sublet in the east bay for a couple of month
- A mold free backyard tiny house or in law unit in east bay you’d let me rent for cheap for a few months - either in East Bay or somewhere arid with access to nature
- Yard with hose and electric for trailer/tiny house
- Leads on friends or family you may have who might have a backyard where they would let me construct a tiny house or a freagrance free, mcas safe, covid safe room in their space
- Leads on intentional community, a queer friendly, non ableist, and rural or wild place to live where I do not have to do sweat equity to be considered an equal participant. Perhaps you know a friend who lives in such a community and they may be able to ask if I could stay there or become a participating member of community.
- Letter of recommendation suggesting I should be welcomed into such a community.
Financial
-A personal loan of about $8,000 to $10,000 to be repaid in
$300/month increments interest free
-Leads on good places to get
an auto loan
-Donations towards hotels, or towards vehicle
purchase
-Paypal or Venmo direct donations paypal @LymeTest venmo
@mxcrip-lives
-Buys off of Amazon wish List
-Sharing of
fundraiser without donating
-donate publicly and share fundraiser
* Asking everyone you know if they can find any of the above*
For any of these projects, my access needs are important. I am about to describe those. Below that I will go into detail about other things I need in each of the above asks.
What is an access need? The limitations disabled people experience are created by society designing and implementing physical and social structures that work for only a small subset of the population. Access needs describe what is required to fill the gap between what currently exists and what is required to give a disabled person equal access. Bear in mind that access needs related to physical or emotional conditions are equally important.
My Access Needs:
- Location in a small city or large town with good air quality, very low pollution, and NO MOLD.
- Fresh Air, access to nature where I don’t have to wear more than pajamas.
- Contagion care. The ability to protect myself from catching colds, covid etc.
- Local people who are friendly to queer, trans, disabled people.
- Access to good medical care.
- ?Right now I am ok without a wheelchair but I am not going anywhere. ?Wheelchair accessibility?. Depending upon how my healing goes, I will need a place with few stairs or wheelchair access.
- Completely fragrance free without asking me to do a ton of labor to make sure you are fragrance free. No scents in body products, laundry products, cleaning products. Low voc or no voc paints, building materials, and furniture. No smoke of any kind including incense and sage. No essential oils.
- Somewhere welcoming for both myself and my emotional support cat.
- Friendly human contact as well as times of solitude.
- Support doing things, getting around, and recovering when I am fatigued.
- Respect for my autonomy and agency. Respect for invisible disabilities and understanding about chronic fatigue.
- Freedom for PTSD triggers such as emotional manipulation, unsolicited advice, sudden loud sounds, bright flashing lights.
- Quiet. A lack of loud noises.
- Low light when I have a migraine.
- Access to arts such as dance, theater.
Intentional Community
For help finding this, we would need to talk at length about my access needs and how the community matches up with them.
Benevolent housing:
Here’s what I would need in order to successfully stay with you.
Share your space or home without charging me more that 3o% of my
income for rent and utilities combined. Please understand I do not
have the means to make more money and I cannot afford to give the
majority of my income to rent because of the cost of my healthcare.
Do not ask me to work to make up for what I cannot
pay.
Housemates who are kind to queer, trans, non binary disbled
people. People who are understanding of invisible disabilities and who
can meet access needs around fragrance (completely fragrance free),
ptsd (no sudden loud noises, and understanding if I have symptoms).
Completely fragrance free home. Non smoking (no exposure to
smoke of any kind and especially no exposure to nicotine or nicotine
residue. Cannibis residue in small amounts is ok. Awareness that some
chemicals such as bleach, gasoline, formaldehyde, pesticides will make
me sick and willingness to use care to protect me.
Engage in pod style agreements to foster contagion safe home and
ability to unmask around each other. Make (agreed upon) efforts to
avoid exposure to covid and even colds. Communicate promptly about
exposures and symptoms. Provide ways I can safely isolate from
contagion without losing access to bathroom and kitchen.
Place
where myself, my cat, and my wheelchair are welcome (wheelchair can
stay in a garage but I can’t do stairs regularly).
Willingness
to chip in and support me when fatigued or acceptance of helpers
coming to do that.
Respect for my autonomy and agency, ability to
refrain from unsolicited advice. Relationship growth through direct
and compassionate communication. Clearly negotiated agreements and
conflict resolution instead of implied rules and passive
aggression.
My own room and access to quiet balanced with access
to friendly company. Outside space where I can hang out in PJs and
invite guests.
Awareness of and efforts to mitigate the
potential harm that can come from power dynamics arising from
disparate economical status or disparate payments towards rent or
utilities.
Organic garden is a plus.
Walkable to food, arts,
community, or place to charge electric vehicle.
Yard
Here’s what I would need to park a tiny home or trailer in your yard:
Electric and sewer connections for tiny home, or shared use of
bathroom and some kitchen.
Enough outdoor space that I can spend
time outside comfortably and remain separate in case of covid
infection.
Outside space where I can hang out in PJs and invite
guests.
Respect for Access needs as spelled out above in the
housing description
Local ordinances that accept either accessory
dwelling units or mobile homes/ trailers in yards.
Garden plot a
plus. Organic is essential. Could be containers. Regenerative, no till
garden preferred.
Some logistical support or acceptance that
others (paid or not) will be joining me to help out.
New Friends
Do you care about the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable species including marginalized humans? Are you ready to abolish prisons, police, and coercive healthcare? Are you queer, creative, and weird? I want friends who respect me and enjoy me for who I am right now. I have tons of playfulness, kindness, and unconditional positive regard to give. I am especially excited about friendships with people who know about access intimacy, mutual aid, transformative justice, and direct, non violent communication, but I also welcome those who are different from me but respect me as I am and are willing to listen if I need to point out something ableist that happens. I’d love to connect in person but I welcome pen pals and online friends too!
Cuddlers
Have you been to one of the consent workshops or cuddle gatherings I have hosted? If so, you know exactly what I mean when I say safe, non sexual touch. If you haven’t checked out cuddleparty.com or similar or you aren’t familiar with consent negotiation, it might be best to educate yourself before showing up for this. Cuddling and massage are what I need to reset my traumatized nervous system. This is not a euphamism for sex. This is not a romantic invitation. This is a need for the kind of cuddling you might do with a dog or cat. Showing up completely fragrance free and without a contagious illness for this is extremely important. I ask folks to reschedule if they have had symptoms or contact with someone sick in the past 7 days and to educate themselves about fragrances.
A Live In Caregiver
This caregiver could be a friend, housemate, or stranger. They must meet all my access need as well as being able to follow direction instead of trying to decide what to do for me. I have a whole web page about the tasks required and will share upon request. Pay for the job is free rent PLUS an IHSS stipend that fluctuates by county but would likely be between $600 and $1200 each month!
We Can Do It
Chronic fatigue, Auto Immune Illness, and Environmental Injury have taken the person I was away from me. The social isolation and psychological harm experienced by trans and disabled people is documented in psych studies and literature - the patterns of emotional injury are ubiquitous. I know I am not alone in my suffering and aloneness, but this connection isn’t a comfort unless I can uplift and help others. To do that, I need to heal.
I could access the things I love and which would make my life rich and meaningful again, and I could heal from cPTSD with the help of friends and community members working together. If someone reading this has a spare room or space in their yard to offer me, that could drastically reduce my need to raise funds! At this point, my needs are in a place of true emergency. I need real world concrete action right away to rebuild a life worth living. Are you ready to help?
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