Emergency Housing for our dear queer comrade

Hello! My name is Cory and I’m organizing this fundraiser for my wonderful partner, Kiersten. She is currently facing a dire emergency involving housing instability and a steep decline in her physical and mental health, caused by negligence that was completely out of her control or knowledge. Bear with me…this might be a long read but the details are critical if you can spare a few minutes.

It was discovered early this summer that Kiersten’s apartment had a severe mold infestation caused by years of plumbing issues that were purposefully ignored by her landlord. When the mold was brought to his attention, he ordered the wall in her living room to be opened to investigate, but did not properly contain the biohazard for over a week. Kiersten was directly exposed to toxic mold (and according to new info, probably asbestos) for days before a third party remediation crew took over and they ordered Kiersten out of the home immediately. At 8:30am, with less than an hour to pack essentials and wrangle her extremely anxious cat, Kiersten was displaced from the apartment with nowhere to go. Her entire family lives on the other side of the country and due to the challenges of my own living situation (I live with my disabled father, a hoarder who has filled up every inch of the home aside from one small bedroom where I live with my two cats), I sadly have not been able to provide a space for her.

Thankfully a lovely friend was able to house her temporarily, but now over a month later, Kiersten is still separated from her beloved Fawkes and Baby Z (her darling Corgi and tuxedo kitty who were safely housed elsewhere with their co-parent), and unable to return home due to the lies and reckless mismanagement of her landlord. She was assured it was safe to return to the apartment, but they refused to do any tests or show her proof that the home was safe and habitable. Kiersten then had to pay over $600 out of pocket to do her own testing, which showed extremely dangerous elevated levels of 3 different mold species in the air and on surfaces, AFTER she was informed it was safe to move back in.

This has caused severe financial and mental strain. Kiersten urgently needs to find a new place to live, which will include a deposit, first month’s rent and other moving costs. She will have to get all new furniture and essentials since they have been contaminated by the insane levels of mold in her home. Due to the severe chronic illness she’s developed over the past year (which we have now realized was very likely caused by potential YEARS of toxic mold exposure), she was unable to take summer classes, leaving her without crucial financial aid which she depends on as her only source of income.

Kiers has been a full time student since beginning her Engineering degree at UCSD, unable to work due to the high demands of her class loads paired with her increasing diagnoses — over the last 1.5 years, Kiers has seen countless specialists and has received new diagnoses (POTS, absolute iron deficiency anemia, chronic migraines, endometriosis, chronic sinus infections and allergies) in addition to experiencing heightened severity of prior diagnoses (chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD, c-PTSD, eosinophilic esophagitis). Her recent ANA test came back positive, indicating that there is some other autoimmune disease at work, but she has to have further testing done with rheumatology to get more answers.

After finding the mold in her home, doing a bunch of research, and following up with her doctors, Kiers and I discovered that ALL of the above symptoms/diagnoses have a common link to toxic mold exposure as a catalyst for causation. And, on top of everything else, her Instagram account @okqueersten was just permanently banned without any reason or explanation. Kiers emailed Instagram support multiple times and was denied access to her data, photos, videos or any other evidence of Community Guidelines Violations when she asked why she was removed from her platform. She now has no way to receive support from the online community she has built for years.

If you know anything about Kiersten or her Instagram platform, you know how passionate she is about helping others, speaking out about mental health, systemic injustices, and especially fighting for the families in Palestine that she volunteered to sponsor. In the last 4 months, she used her platform to help raise over $35,000 for 2 families.

Kiers has devoted so much energy to helping others, but has kept so quiet about the help she needs now. It has broken my heart to see her get hit with blow after blow in just one single month, and I desperately want to help ensure that she can find a safe place to live and to start healing, physically and mentally. So, I asked her if I could create this fundraiser for her, and with her consent, I am now hoping to show her the same support she has always shown me and everyone else around her.

Once again, my goal of this campaign will be to help Kiersten raise enough money to apply for a new apartment, put down a security deposit, pay first month’s rent, reimburse her $615 environmental testing, replace almost all of her belongings, and to simply survive the usual cost of living in the middle of all this chaos. It crushes me that I am disabled myself and I can’t help her more. Kiersten is such a genuinely kind, empathetic, bright and lovely person who doesn’t deserve anything that has been happening to her, which is why I really want to implore our community to help her get through this right now.

Thank you all so, so much for reading, sharing, and donating if you are able. I know it will mean the world to her. Anything helps, and if you can’t donate, please just consider sharing to help us get the word out for her, especially since she no longer has access to her own platform.

We love you all so so much. Thank you again.