2024 the year of battles. Please help me from being evicted.

This was a very difficult decision for me to make, to start this fund, I am a very private person, and often seclude myself in stressful and painful times, thinking I can handle it on my own, cause everyone has their own problems. However, I can't go this final weekend without attempting one last effort to make fighting this eviction happen.

I have a LTB meeting on Monday at 11am and will be facing eviction from my home in Brantford which would defeat the whole purpose of moving here 3 years ago, which was to be closer to work in Hamilton, spending less time on the highways and more time with my kids.

Dec 28 2023, I suffered a severe back injury at work, my whole back, neck and shoulders were affected making it very difficult to even open doors, take care of my child and I couldn't drive due to the pain. Really, I could barely do anything! I was focused on doing my best to maintain the normalcy for my child, struggling to make sure he ate and got to school, and just trying to relieve my pain. Considering my previous back injury in 2006, this recent injury was exasperated and healing has been prolonged. I initially was off work until Feb and started back on modified duties. Unfortunately after just 2 weeks back at work, I started to progressivly regress to even worse than it was in Dec. Since it was a work injury, I started out getting WSIB and after 8 weeks of treatment despite my chiropractor requesting for additional treatment and my family Dr requesting an assessment with their specialists, WSIB decided in March that I was healed from my work injury and any discomforts I have are due to my previous injury 18 years ago, and they closed my file. I have been since fighting with WSIB through their appeal processes and still waiting for their 3rd party to assess my file for my next appeal. Without the WSIB funding I felt like I had no choice but to continue to work despite the pain making it difficult to even walk or stand for a few minutes, until HHS sent me to be assessed at CBI in Apr which led to me being put on sick leave the next day. I went from working overtime in Dec to getting 80% of 27.5 hours a week. Needless to say finances were very tight. Everything has suffered. In addition to fighting WSIB, I was also battling my ex for retroactive child support for our now adult children. Ya he has underpaid me for 11 years and of course wants to give me the least amount possible, so despite attempting to resolve in court we will be going to trial next June. In addition to those 2 fights, I heard OPSEU has a hardship fund, so I applied. I got a call May 24 that I was approved for $3000 of the $5000 I asked for. Apparently the cheque got lost in the mail. My union rep was finally able to help me get a response from the union first week of July resulting in a $2000 cheque at the end of the month. Not sure what that is about but I sent an email to the OPSEU whistleblower, so we'll see if that goes anywhere. All this fighting, however there is some light at the end of this tunnel. I've continuously progressed in healing thanks to physio at CBI, they have gone over and above, assisting me with my fight with WSIB, although my progress has been painful and slow it is working. It was significant enough for me to go back to work doing modified duties in July. I work 3 days a week, with the other 2 days for physio. I'm very happy to report that I am starting to feel like myself again. However the financial issues have continued to pile as I haven't had enough income coming in for all of our expenses, and I am here now facing eviction. I'm not only concerned about losing my home, but also what doing a longer commute again would mean for my healing progress and for maintaining my employment. I've been fortunate to have recieved a recent pay raise which was back dated a year and 4 months. This good fortune wasn't as much as I thought it would be, thanks to taxes, so it's not enough to keep me in my place in Brantford. I need HHS to reassess which will take time . I'm asking for help, anything you can do would be appreciated. I don't have much time as hearing is on Mon. I initially needed $8500, I thought my recent payment of $4500 would be enough to work out an affordable payment plan with my coop, but on Thursday they told me it wasn't enough. If I can get balance down more, it will enhance my chances of being able to get an affordable payment plan to be able to stay in my home. Also, if I can get the balance to $1100 then I can get assistence from Housing Stability fund for that remainder. Also, if I can come up with enough to stop this eviction than in the new year I will qualify for Rent Geared to Income program here in my coop, which will go a long way to helping me build myself back up again and I will be able to continue to focus on my healing progress to get my life back on track.

Please every bit is extremely helpful.

Thank you for your time reading this.

Elizabeth Hurst