Help Us Keep Our Home for the Holidays

Hello there and happy holidays! My name is Emily and I created a gofundme because my partner Ethan and I (and our two incredible emotional support pups) are at risk of losing our home if we don’t raise the needed funds. It feels hard to ask for help, but as someone who is a deep believer in vulnerability, community, compassion, love, and helping each other, it felt like a time where I needed to put those beliefs into practice from the asking side. We are renters and have a great landlord, but we’ve been dealing with financial and health struggles for an extended period of time and this has led to us getting behind on our rent. There was an organization we thought was helping us, but then they stopped responding/answering our attempts at correspondence and did not pay a month and a half of rent that they communicated they would. This left us being 3 months behind on our rent unexpectedly and put us in a position where if we are not able to pay our landlord the back rent of $3,240 by the last day of December we will have to move come the end of January. We have applied for every assistance program we could find and either programs no longer exist, we don’t qualify, or we just haven’t heard anything back. Moving again is something that we cannot afford to do, both because of lack of resources and finances, but also because of the mental and emotional stress of moving, especially in the middle of winter and pandemic.

For me, Emily, these financial struggles started a couple years ago when my now ex-husband asked for a divorce, which led to the loss of my source of income (since I was in graduate school full time) and led to the loss of my housing since we were living with his family at the time. Between then and now I have had to move 6 times, which has only added to this financial hardship and overall level of stress and struggle due to housing instability and fears of homelessness at times. I thought that Ethan and I would be able to get caught up and to a better financial situation once I graduated in January of 2021 with my M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy and started working as a therapist, but that wasn’t how things happened. Around the same time as I graduated and started working my pre-existing chronic migraines worsened, and I started being in pain every day due to what I found out was fibromyalgia. These conditions are worsened by stress and have severely negatively impacted the amount I’ve been able to work, even though I love my job, the people I work with, and what I do. Additionally, the more instability and stress we have, the sicker I’ve tended to be and the less I’ve been able to work, which then exacerbates the stress and financial hardship- a truly vicious cycle. I’ve been working hard to get my health in a better spot and it’s improving, but the leftover stress and bills from how sick I’ve been and how far behind that’s put us are an ever-present overhanging cloud.

Ethan is a disabled veteran who served on two separate deployments during his 10 years of service. His time serving the country left him with multiple injuries that make it very difficult for him to work and impossible to hold a job. Because of this Ethan has been working with the VA to get increased help, but this can be a long and far from simple process. The time that this process has taken and the fact that he is unable to work has also made things trickier for us as we continue to try to get caught up and into a good place with our health and finances.

Between the work I’ve been doing to improve my health and Ethan being able to move further along in the process with the VA, I really feel like we might actually be on the cusp of being in a really good spot, both financially and just generally in regard to our quality of life. However, if we cannot raise this money and have to move again, that is going to set us back immensely in every way I can think of. We desperately do not want to lose our home, and it would mean the world to us if you would help us get into a better place in our lives during some really difficult times in our world. If we do not reach our goal, anything we do raise will go towards paying off the debt we owe to our landlord to try to get back into good standing with them. If we surpass our goal extra funds will go towards other bills such as past due utilities, medical debt/expenses, student loans, etc. If we surpass amounts needed for those things, further funds we’re gifted will go towards giving us a cushion to continue to stay caught up on rent, bills, etc. as I continue to learn how to manage my chronic pain and illness towards the goal of being able to work more hours each week, and while Ethan navigates the process with the VA. We have been trying our best to manage this on our own, but we’re at a point where we really just need some help. Thank you so much for taking the time to read about our story and for possibly partnering with us in the pursuit of a more stable situation.