Hello! We are Anthony and Lisa. We also go by mom and dad to our ten year old daughter, Leela Belle. By next month we very well could be homeless.

Together we have faced tremendous obstacles. We have endured catastrophic illnesses, family tragedies, lost income since the pandemic, and more. It has been an emotional and financial crisis that has just built upon itself. We have always found a way to be there for each other though.

Leela has Autism and OCD. She was non-verbal until age 6. Her meltdowns were so extreme that when she was in preschool we were told she is unlikely going to be able to attend a district elementary school. Yet, she is now in 5th grade and attending general ed classes for the first year. She reads grades above her level, she plays violin, she writes her own comic books and stories, and she loves to play video games and code. She also speaks perfectly and comes up with profound thoughts that are so beyond her years.

Leela’s success is possible because we have been so involved in giving her opportunities to grow, and because we have always provided her a home that felt safe. We tried so hard to not let the challenges we are facing affect Leela’s well-being. When the world is too much for her, home has always been a place where she can feel calm. Home is her safe space.

Until now. We are facing eviction and it has been emotionally devastating for Leela. She has a skin-picking and hair-pulling condition that only presents as part of her OCD when she is under extreme stress and anxiety. At one point she had lost much of her eyebrows and all of her eyelashes. The uncertainty of what comes next weighs heavy on her. She began pulling her hair and picking her skin again. She cries and she keeps trying to figure out ways to invent things or find loopholes to get a job. She worries that our cats will not be able to come with us. She loves caring for them and they help lower some of her stress. Leela wants that safe space she used to have before she knew that we might be homeless. We are all also trying to manage our grief and emotions from the loss of our daughter, Leela's sister, Evelyn who died in the womb.

Please consider donating to help us. If you can’t donate, then please share this. That is just as important. And if you can donate… please also share it as well!

Here’s (partially) how we got here:

We had medical debts from illness. Not only does this cause medicial expenses, but this made us lose time at work. Sick pay only covers very little. We had family obligations and tragedies that we had to attend to which led us into debt. But then something great happened…

Anthony began working for a marketing agency in 2020. Things looked really good. We would say, “This is the year of our perfect vision - 2020!” We paid down our rent owed. We started to pay down our debts. He was working his full-time job and working at the marketing agency. He’d work on the train to and from the city. He was also working a commission job for a new company getting onto grocery shelves. Anthony had orders approved and ready to go for several large chain stores. The only thing that seemed to be able to stop us was a meteor. Or a global pandemic.

Anthony went from three jobs to none. From seeing our income going way up, to watching it crash way down.

Where we are now:

Anthony tried to find a job in his field. It difficult to find a similar position. He tried to find positions that were lower and less paying. Recruiters kept reporting back rejections. It seemed suspect that he’d want to work long-term for a job he was over-qualified for. One national brand said that he would “get bored working at this level and just leave for a different job once this market changes”. He is now working at Starbucks, but it is not enough money to catch up. Lisa is unable to work due to chronic health conditions. Stress exacerbates the symptoms of her condition. She has monthly vomiting episodes. Sometimes she has to go to the hospital for treatments for these episodes and for her other conditions. These treatments include IV medicine and transfusions. She is not receiving disability payments yet, but we are hoping after the housing situation is remedied we can get that approved.

We were approved for Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). That helped out a lot of our arrears. We then applied to an arrears program offered for people who had been affected by the pandemic. Anthony’s marketing job was in the events industry. Though events are coming back, the company no longer exists or has a job for him. The product never came out because stores suspended new items. The company shut down as they were unable to operate in stand-by. Our family was on a waitlist for months for this program. We were just called to apply because it was determined we were directly financially impacted by COVID.

Where will donations go? How will it create self-sufficiency?

Unlike ERAP, the program we are getting into will not suspend our eviction. If we are evicted, the money will still go to the landlord and we will have less debt to pay back. But we will be homeless.

We have a pro-bono lawyer who has been in touch with the complex. Here is what we have been told to expect:

What about Department of Social Services, etc?

We have exhausted every avenue for help you can think of. We have been helped, and it's brought us closer to being stable. But not quite there.

Department of Social Services will help once we are evicted and on the street. They do not consider it homelessness until after eviction. They said after that we can ask for help. This would involve homeless shelters and eventually maybe some program might open up. Although $6000 is less than the cost of housing a family of three in a homeless shelter for a month, they denied our request for a grant. Even though it's less expensive, the policy is what it is.

No other program can help us with the speed at which a GoFundMe can help us. This is, without exaggeration, our last and only hope.

In Conclusion:

We are standing at a point where we can go one way towards peace-of-mind and building up our financial health. The other way is towards a continued debt cycle. We want to provide Leela with the better option, and I hope that you can help us.