HELP KEEP A FAMILY IN SAFE HOUSING

I know this story is long, and probably not particularly unique. I wanted to be completely honest and explain our situation, what has happened, what is needed, and what we have done to help oursel
ves. Thank you so much for reading, and for helpgin if you can, and sharing if you feel so moved.

This last year has been a really humbling one. After a series of struggles, my tight little family was split up and hit by a series of difficult situations, and I have had to really reach out to the universe and really work hard to prioritize what is important, and to pick up the pieces and move forward. 

Two years ago, we were a typical, struggling family. 3 kids, 2 adults, little savings, but working hard to make ends meet and spend time with our kids while they are small. We discovered we were unexpectedly pregnant with our fourth, and, though unplanned, we were excited and confident in our jobs and the stability of our family unit. We didn't have any savings and were not prepared when an unexpected and unavoidable large expense was necessary. This was our mistake.

We spent every penny we had to keep things afloat and everything that could go wrong did. We each lost our jobs, one after the other, and we did not have the necessary funds to fight to keep full custody of our oldest daughter. We struggled to make sure the bills were paid, keep the kids connected, and have a safe pregnancy and happy newborn. Our bills fell behind. Our health suffered. The hole got bigger. We continued to work. We applied for rental and utility assistance to discover that most agencies, IF there are any funds (which is rare), will ONLY help if you are already homeless, evicted, or without utilities, which of course adds EXTRA fees and complications. We reached out to our community, for support, for work, for love and prayers.

Finally, towards the end of last year, things started to look up. We had job prospects, we secured good health insurance for every member of our family, and were very hopeful. But we had already fallen SO far behind that every penny made was already accounted for. We reached out again to our community, to help give our kids a super holiday. We bartered for gifts, we gratefully accepted donations. We continued to work, got our basic needs met, and most of our bills up-to-date, but fell VERY behind on rent.

Our landlords were understanding in December when we were unable to pay at all. So far, we have paid about 25% of January's rent, and expect to have another $500 in owed checks to pay by next week. I have secure a job that will be part-time in February and full-time in March. My partner is working now, and hoping to have more jobs opening up. We have all sorts of things up for sale, even those with sentimental value. We are STILL on various waitlists for rental assistance. We REALLY feel that we can be caught up within the next couple of months.

But things are continuing to snowball, and we are running out of time. Our landlords want to hand over management of our house to a property management company, which we fear will put us homeless if we are still behind. One major unavoidable bill has also fallen behind and will majorly affect us. We REALLY need help catching up.

We realize that not being prepared was a mistake. We see now that perhaps we should have rolled over in a legal battle where we didn't have adequate representation. We tried to handle it all ourselves. We failed. We are so thankful for the help we have received, and we have worked hard to help ourselves as well. The amount of money needed in a VERY short period of time seems insurmountable to us, but a drop in the bucket in the grander scheme of things. Come March, our jobs will be enough to take care of our basic, CURRENT expenses at that time. 

IF we can make it that far.

This is where YOU come in. We don't want to inconvenience anyone, in any way. We don't want anyone to put themselves in a difficult position to help us. We are willing to work for anything we receive, and pay it back one day, no matter what it takes. But, for our kids, we NEED to make sure we do not become homeless. Our home is not only tied to our income (I work from home, and cannot do so from an apartment or shelter, nor will we be able to findnew housing if evicted), it is our children's last source of stability. We have worked SO hard for our kids, and just want to be given the chance to really start over and make a nice, stable, life for our family. 

PLEASE, if you can spare anything at all, even $5 or $10, it would be SO much appreciated. If you could SHARE this with anyone you know who could possibly help, and ask them to share as well. We need to come up with too much in too short a period of time for us to handle alone. The follow is the order in which we will spend any funds raised:

$300 - to cover the remainder of january rent
$1100 - to cover february's rent
$200 - towards our outstanding bill, as a good faith statement
$300 towards decembers rent
$200 more towards outstanding bill
$300 towards decembers rent
$200 towards outstanding bill
$300 towards decembers rent (will put our rent up to date)
$300 to put our outstanding bill up to date

If by any miracle we raise ALL of this, or our other efforts are successful, and have any leftover funds, we will be putting this towards my dream, which is an expansion of my buying club to include securing free food for the homeless and hungry, and a community space and camping and home goods rental library. This is an ongoing project that I have had to drop in order to work to keep a roof over our heads.