Please help me keep my home for me and my two animals.

***Please consider Venmo as an alternative—@AFriendForEmmy on Venmo.com or app, or Apple Pay, which I can dm you. The Contribute Page has had some issues with window loading for some at times. Thank you so much***

Hello, thank you for thinking of me, or anyone in need of some help, enough to click on this. My emotions are all over the place, but I know I need to ask for help right now as much as I’ve been taught to hate it and feel deeply ashamed by it. I keep reminding myself if I believe in community then I have to have the genuine faith of participating in our community as a vulnerable someone just as much as when I can participate as a helping and contributing someone.

UPDATED: Thanks to efforts in various manifestations from so many incredible people in my life (all of you) and some invigorated, terror-motivated groveling on my part, I’m in a process to avoid eviction completely. This update happened very suddenly and thanks to the funds given here I was able to pay the first installment required which was enormous and allowed me to actually breathe for the first time that week. Tomorrow they’re asking for the second—I also will be stepping into my new role at work in the next two weeks which long-term resolves all of this woe and this terrifying and shouldn’t-feel-but-does-feel-shameful hole! But the short-term is where I’m at. If you can help, share—thank you so deeply much. I can’t seem to update the amount for the campaign, but as of right now $600 (with what I am already paying them tomorrow) will clear the eviction notice so we can renegotiate my payment plan. 

The love and solidarity and care I’ve seen and felt these last few weeks is astonishing to me. It has been a miracle even though that probably sounds sucrose and ham-fisted if you’re not sitting in my shoes right now. I will try to simply tell you and hope you believe when I do that you have given me something beautiful no matter what happens that I cannot forget or un-know. I hope you get to feel and know it too. I hope so much I have done or will do something for your life. Thank you.

**** The Full Story // Original Post ****

The last few years have been deeply difficult for almost everyone but a few. The last year has been lucky and unlucky for me in many ways—unfortunately the unlucky ways have affected me enormously financially leading to my current need and this page. Some of the events and their rapid succession of one another have felt almost like a joke. I’ve tried very hard to maintain self compassion and not fall into an old habit I learned growing up, which is that this is all a reflection of my own failings and overall worth. I know each of you understands that feeling in different ways.

I wish I was a brave enough person to share my identity fully—I’m not yet. That might make this seem suspicious or tacky, especially in a time and place we all have been given plenty of reason to feel hesitant and suspicious especially when we have our own financial concerns and priorities, in particular. All I can do is still ask for your help. Because I need it. And because I promise that I am trying so much to put goodness and my own helping into the world, and the public service job I work and have clung on to, embody the exact same. But I don’t work for Big Money of any kind, and I’ve been solo and trying my best for a long time now.

I have a wonderful life overall—I don’t want to sound like I haven’t made decisions that don’t also please me, or that I am a saint who doesn’t make mistakes constantly. I’ve hidden these fears and challenges from social media and all but my very closest friends. I am afraid of asking, and I am afraid of asking and not being able to get the help I need…but I’m most afraid of losing my home/apartment, and never recovering, which is a very strong possible event right now. I work with many people experiencing homelessness. If you do not already understand how unfortunate, entrapping, dangerous, and permanent it becomes almost immediately, I hope you can learn more about the afflictions so many people are facing through it. If you can understand that, I hope it explains why I am so terrified and why this is urgent for me and my well-being.

If I had any other resource I would exhaust it. I need to pay just under $10k (unless the landlord accepts my attempts at renegotiation I’m currently offering which would then be $5k) in the next 27 days or I will be evicted. Trust me when I say I understand how daunting and overwhelming and shameful that amount feels. I’m due for a promotion that will remedy this repayment being a struggle over time, but the civil job I work is slow, and time is very very short now, and I do not have the finances currently (as you might guess), or the necessary support to obtain new housing. Both my family members live with or are abusers—I cannot live with them. This is a very dangerous position to be in and I don’t wish it on anyone, though I know how common it is.

I don’t deserve any more help than anyone, likely less. I’m just trying my best like everyone else. But I ask for your help, please, right now to survive this essential moment.

I feel terrible and hideous asking, though I wish no one would ever feel terrible or hideous asking. Maybe if we asked more we would feel less like that. I am so grateful. If it’s $5 or you just cared enough to look and not think those two feelings I just said I feel about myself and this.

If it’s possible, once this is over and hopefully I feel safe, I would like to make everyone who donates a watercolor painting to send you either digitally or in the mail. I don’t have much but I promise it will be full of heart and maybe beautiful in some way.

Thank you. I hope abundance for you and everybody.