Help Gage Brossa Overcome Eviction Crisis

Hello, my name is Gage Brossa. I live in Bergen County, New Jersey. I am the party raising funds. This is an appeal to anyone who might be able to help me in an emergency situation.

For the last several years I've had several unforeseen events effect my financial stability and health, the first being Hurricane Irma in which water entered my unit in due to Landlord’s negligence causing loss to personal property and damage to the apartment unit, including my first exposure to mold.

Second was Covid-19 which negatively impacted my ability to gain meaningful employment,

Third was then Hurricane Ida, prior to which my landlord removed the shingles leaving the unit exposed causing even larger amounts of water to enter my apartment unit for a second time. I did what was suggested to me by a very hands off landlord and I attempted to remediate the water and damage to the unit. During this clean up effort I was exposed to mold, mycotoxins and bacteria causing health problems and many associated hospital visits. Only once Mold overtook many portions of the apartment unit did my Landlord finally step in and try to mitigate the damage. After the cleanup and health issues my finances, credit score, and personal property were negatively impacted. While I have been applying to several jobs daily for the last 5 months, I have no offer in sight.

As a result of Hurricane Ida I ended up applying for rental assistance in 2023 in order to help me to be able to continue to be able to afford my rent while I worked on my health problems, and find work to get back on my feet. Unfortunately, my perception is that my landlords look down upon rental assistance and due to this decided not to cooperate with that rental assistance program, which left me in a terrible situation. Following legal advice my only chance to get the landlords to cooperate was to file a L.A.D complaint with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights.

At this time it has been several months since the denial of the rental assistance. I've had a harder and harder time each month paying my bills and being able to make the rent. This meant that I began to owe my landlords a past due balance as well as late fees and in May 2024, after receiving word of said complaint in an effort to cover up their own negligence and wrong-doings and in retaliation to this complaint they filed an eviction complaint against me for the amount that owed in order to push me out of my home.

I attempted to reach out to the social service organizations in my area (there are not many) to assist with paying the arrears, but so, far I've received help from two smaller organization and its been quite difficult working with some of the larger county run programs, both in how long these applications take (30 - 60 days) and the amount of visits and hoops I have to jump through to obtain it. While I am still actively working with these organizations to secure funding I do not believe I will be approved within the time frame necessary.

And so now, I've also run out of time - I've been scheduled for court this coming Wednesday July 31st 2024 and a request for adjournment was denied - and that's why I've come to ask you all for your help.

I'm asking for donations to help raise the rest of the money that I owe for rent in order to prevent me becoming unhoused. Any type of donation at all will make a difference and would be a great help. The funds will directly go to paying the balance I owe for the rent. Receipts of payments made to landlord rent will be posted.

Considering everything that's happened so far and how much time I have left, I'm really hoping for a miracle at this point. This is my last attempt as the legal advice I have received stated to raise the money or become homeless.

Thank you all so much for listening to my story, for your kindness, consideration and your generosity.

In Peace,

Gage