As many of you know, our friend Alberto "Pete" Rivera came home in late 2022 after spending 48 1/2 years incarcerated in the New York State prison system.

We are sincerely grateful for the ongoing outpour of support from everyone who contributed to Pete's initial welcome home and wheelchair funds. As he continues to take steps toward stability and care, it's been powerful to see Pete take agency and navigate living in the city again with courage and grace. We really look forward to more opportunities for community building as he continues to get settled.

We are creating a collective care fund at this time to support Pete's shelter while he's in a transitional phase from leaving his family's home to taking temporary residence in a hotel. We have just booked a room for Pete through November 20th, totaling $2250.

We would like to raise funds to support this and additional funds to extend this stay or use it towards his rent fund. This is the best solution so far as wheelchair-accessible rooms for rent haven't been easy to come across, and re-entry programs housing remain inaccessible to his care needs.

Entering the Department of Homeless Services shelter system requires him to relinquish his power chair and lose access to his home attendant, which he needs for assistance with bathing and meals. Our only option at this time is a nursing home - a congregate group home facility - that would require hospital respite for 1-5 months before he is transferred. We are in contact with two Independent Living Resource Centers and have an intake appointment pending 1-2 weeks. We remain hopeful and will continue to support Pete as best we can based on the available options in the coming weeks. But there are genuinely very few resources that support independent living for disabled people who require daily care, which is why we are reaching out to our communities for support.

We understand not everyone has access to financial resources. If you do, please consider making a generous contribution to go toward longer term care.

There are many ways to contribute that also don't require $$$. If you have the capacity for other forms of care work, like walks, meal drop-offs, tech skill sharing, etc., please message us. We would like to build a larger group to make this more sustainable for all of us.

If anyone has contacts in the Bronx, we welcome inquiries or leads on any wheelchair-accessible room from the exterior to the interior (longer or shorter term). Pete is a kind, responsible, and respectful person and would make a sweet roommate.

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Please feel free to share this with your networks, and thank you for your time and consideration.

With care,

Pete, Josephine, Noam, Tynan and Franca