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30 Days to Find a New Life: Help Needed

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Hello, my name is Buster Neece. I'm a 35-year-old web developer and open-source software maintainer living with physical and mental health disabilities.

For almost six years now, I've been living with a friend, renting a room in their house. This arrangement was ideal because the severity of my physical and mental health problems has kept me from holding many traditional jobs, which has meant my income is meager, often well below the poverty line. Here, I had a physically accessible room that accommodated my needs well and was affordable enough for me to stay, despite a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2019 stripping me of my credit and vehicle.

This weekend, I was given abrupt news out of the blue: I have 30 days to find a new place to live. I wasn't delinquent on rent--despite my struggles, I've been able to pay it every month--but the stated reason was that our "landlord" roommate's therapist says they should be living more "independently".

For most people, this would be a huge inconvenience, but for me, it's even more difficult. For one, my physical health means this will be a very painful process, and my high susceptibility to COVID severity means I'm at great risk every step of the way. Thanks to my low income and recent bankruptcy, I currently have no cash, very little credit, and no vehicle, and rent prices in my area have never been higher. Add to that the sweltering heat of this Texas summer, and you have a recipe for disaster.

I've appealed to my "landlord" roomie for extra time on account of these things, but they've refused every request. At this point, in early August, I'll have no place to live.

I have some local friends whose couches I can sleep on for a little while, and I've arranged a storage unit for the rest of my belongings, but I have no long-term plan for survival past the next month or two. The uncertainty of it all has left a knot in my stomach and has kept me awake at night.

I set the goal high here because I really don't know how much this whole process will cost, or where I'll wind up permanently. Nothing is keeping me in the greater Austin area, so depending on how much I'm able to raise, I may be able to move out of the area entirely, to somewhere with a much cheaper cost of living.

Thank you all for your support. If you have any ideas for places that I can stay for the medium-term future, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Organizer

Buster Neece
Organizer
Round Rock, TX

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