Please help my daughter, Charity Lenfest. The following is from her Facebook post today. She never told people how bad things have gotten. We are asking for $2,000 but more is needed to catch up. She has children that are affected as well. Thank you for your consideration.
From Charity,
First, thank you for the comments and private messages asking if I'm okay. I really was just making a point about our world. We live in a country with massive amounts of wealth, yet there is a waiting list for the homeless shelter. We're doing society the wrong way, obviously. This should be an outrage to everyone, whether or not they know someone who is affected by this.
That said, yes, I am someone who is affected by this. Short version: I need to pay $2,000 to the court by Feb.1, or they will issue a writ of possession to my landlord, which means I will have 5 days to get out before I will be forcibly removed.
Longer version: Some of you know (probably most don't) that my mental health has rapidly declined over the past couple of years. I have struggled with severe depressions, anxiety, and panic attacks. A year ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I also have panic disorder. I have been undergoing a lot of treatment, including different types of therapy and medications, but things are not stabilizing. I am sort of "better" right now, in the sense that I don't wake up every morning wanting to literally die, but my memory, concentration, and ability to think clearly took a severe hit. (Writing this is taking an enormous amount of effort and time, especially for someone who has written as a profession and hobby for over a decade, and I keep having to correct really weird mistakes where the word I was thinking and the word I typed were two totally different things.) And that isn't even getting into the severe panic attacks that keep me home most days or the overwhelming sense of impending doom that hovers over my head quite regularly.
I have struggled to support myself and my children over the past couple of years. Whenever I feel even somewhat okay, I work, but then I have a setback, and I can't. I get behind; I catch up. That worked until it didn't. For the past six months, I have not been able to work at all. Things have gotten really bad for me, regarding my mental health. I have a hard time keeping up with daily life tasks, let alone anything extra. If we're friends, I probably haven't stayed in contact. If I said I would do something, I probably didn't do it. My quality of life isn't all that great. As a result of all this, I got behind on my rent and am being evicted.
Contrary to the right wing propaganda memes you see on facebook and elsewhere, the government isn't out there handing out money left and right. The help that is available is very minimal. (Hey, remember that "study" that said you can make more staying home on welfare than you can working full time at a minimum wage job? Yeah, no. That's a lie. Not just a mistake - A LIE. A lie designed to get you all mad at poor people, so you don't notice how that government is owned by the extremely wealthy.) The waiting list for section 8 rental assistance is 7 - 10 years. The maximum "welfare" benefit for a mom and 3 minor children is $795/month. That's for rent, utilities, transportation, medicine, toilet paper, et cetera, and food - because food stamps is supplemental (that's the S in SNAP) and not meant to be enough to actually feed you for the month. And for the mothers fortunate to have child support being paid, the state takes all but $50 of it as reimbursement for the benefits, bringing the total amount of money for a family of 4 to live on to a whopping $845/month. You can barely rent a one bedroom apartment with nothing included for that.
So, social commentary aside, things have gotten really bad. My oldest is now an adult (which means the most money I could get from the state is now only $709 + $50 for child support), so he is getting a job to help with the rent bills, but it's too late to stop the eviction, because I won't have the money I need by the first. We will probably end up staying in a shelter until we can save up enough money to get an apartment. That is, if we can get one without having a landlord reference, because I've lived here for 15 years.
I normally don't share this much personal stuff on facebook, but I think it's important for people to know the reality of what happens when someone becomes too ill to work. There is no "safety net." There are no big government handouts. And the people this happens to are not "others," not "undesirables." They are your friends, your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors. So the next time you see a piece of political propaganda designed to pit the middle class against the poor (working and non-working), I hope you think about my situation and question what you're being told. Next time you're mad because that single mom in front of you in the grocery store doesn't look like she needs foodstamps, ask yourself how many more corporations need tax loopholes. Ask yourself how many more bombs need to be dropped on innocent people in foreign countries. Ask yourself how many more raises congress needs. Ask yourself how many more wasteful government projects needs to be slipped into the budget at the last minute in order to get someone reelected. And then ask yourself if you're blaming the right people.
From Charity,
First, thank you for the comments and private messages asking if I'm okay. I really was just making a point about our world. We live in a country with massive amounts of wealth, yet there is a waiting list for the homeless shelter. We're doing society the wrong way, obviously. This should be an outrage to everyone, whether or not they know someone who is affected by this.
That said, yes, I am someone who is affected by this. Short version: I need to pay $2,000 to the court by Feb.1, or they will issue a writ of possession to my landlord, which means I will have 5 days to get out before I will be forcibly removed.
Longer version: Some of you know (probably most don't) that my mental health has rapidly declined over the past couple of years. I have struggled with severe depressions, anxiety, and panic attacks. A year ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I also have panic disorder. I have been undergoing a lot of treatment, including different types of therapy and medications, but things are not stabilizing. I am sort of "better" right now, in the sense that I don't wake up every morning wanting to literally die, but my memory, concentration, and ability to think clearly took a severe hit. (Writing this is taking an enormous amount of effort and time, especially for someone who has written as a profession and hobby for over a decade, and I keep having to correct really weird mistakes where the word I was thinking and the word I typed were two totally different things.) And that isn't even getting into the severe panic attacks that keep me home most days or the overwhelming sense of impending doom that hovers over my head quite regularly.
I have struggled to support myself and my children over the past couple of years. Whenever I feel even somewhat okay, I work, but then I have a setback, and I can't. I get behind; I catch up. That worked until it didn't. For the past six months, I have not been able to work at all. Things have gotten really bad for me, regarding my mental health. I have a hard time keeping up with daily life tasks, let alone anything extra. If we're friends, I probably haven't stayed in contact. If I said I would do something, I probably didn't do it. My quality of life isn't all that great. As a result of all this, I got behind on my rent and am being evicted.
Contrary to the right wing propaganda memes you see on facebook and elsewhere, the government isn't out there handing out money left and right. The help that is available is very minimal. (Hey, remember that "study" that said you can make more staying home on welfare than you can working full time at a minimum wage job? Yeah, no. That's a lie. Not just a mistake - A LIE. A lie designed to get you all mad at poor people, so you don't notice how that government is owned by the extremely wealthy.) The waiting list for section 8 rental assistance is 7 - 10 years. The maximum "welfare" benefit for a mom and 3 minor children is $795/month. That's for rent, utilities, transportation, medicine, toilet paper, et cetera, and food - because food stamps is supplemental (that's the S in SNAP) and not meant to be enough to actually feed you for the month. And for the mothers fortunate to have child support being paid, the state takes all but $50 of it as reimbursement for the benefits, bringing the total amount of money for a family of 4 to live on to a whopping $845/month. You can barely rent a one bedroom apartment with nothing included for that.
So, social commentary aside, things have gotten really bad. My oldest is now an adult (which means the most money I could get from the state is now only $709 + $50 for child support), so he is getting a job to help with the rent bills, but it's too late to stop the eviction, because I won't have the money I need by the first. We will probably end up staying in a shelter until we can save up enough money to get an apartment. That is, if we can get one without having a landlord reference, because I've lived here for 15 years.
I normally don't share this much personal stuff on facebook, but I think it's important for people to know the reality of what happens when someone becomes too ill to work. There is no "safety net." There are no big government handouts. And the people this happens to are not "others," not "undesirables." They are your friends, your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors. So the next time you see a piece of political propaganda designed to pit the middle class against the poor (working and non-working), I hope you think about my situation and question what you're being told. Next time you're mad because that single mom in front of you in the grocery store doesn't look like she needs foodstamps, ask yourself how many more corporations need tax loopholes. Ask yourself how many more bombs need to be dropped on innocent people in foreign countries. Ask yourself how many more raises congress needs. Ask yourself how many more wasteful government projects needs to be slipped into the budget at the last minute in order to get someone reelected. And then ask yourself if you're blaming the right people.
Organizer
Wendy Barrett
Organizer
Burlington, VT