Family of 11 Needs a Home After Eviction
Donation protected
- The Situation As It Stands:
My name is Veronica, and I’m a 22-year old college student living in Buffalo, New York. I’m also the oldest sister in a family of eleven, nine siblings and my loving parents. I have six younger siblings around the ages of seven and fifteen.
Lately, my family has been caught in a vicious legal whirlpool of trouble from our landlord. Our abusive landlord has caused us to lose the funds we need to buy, or even rent another home. We have very little money to meet his constant demands, and it’s putting the little ones' lives in jeopardy. We are running out of time.
We have collectively put all of our effort into keeping a roof over our heads. At first we thought our efforts would be enough, but we have run out of options. Honestly, I was hesitant to start a GoFundMe at first, but when a friend of mine, Joe Clark (otherwise known as “Joestar_SSB” ) had recommended it to me, I knew the time to call for help had finally come. It’s difficult to ask, but I know it needs to be done.
Despite our endless efforts, Now, we have only two weeks to find a new place to live, because our landlord is forcing our family out of our home. But as it stands the current housing economy won’t even allow us to get even just a four-bedroom home for our entire family.
More and more they are eagerly pushing for people to buy homes instead of renting, and for us to afford is impossible. They don’t seem to care that they are pushing eight young kids onto the streets.
- How Our Landlord Has Taken Advantage Of Us:
We’ve been pushed into a corner. When we try calling or texting the landlord, we almost never hear back unless it benefits him. He often forces us into situations that cause us to make renovations to our home, without his help, and with our own funds. It doesn’t help that the house is in an unlivable condition. Our landlord refuses to help with fixing these issues, despite us paying rent. (If you're interested in reading more elaborate details of my family’s history with our landlord and his abuse of power, further details are below our family picture and our plans.)
He essentially ghosts us until he informs us that we are to make renovations out of pocket, or be removed from our home. This behavior has caught our suspicions.
The situation is especially dire when considering our landlord’s cycle of greedy behavior. This all comes from a consistent pattern of abuse with him. In fact, he tricked my dad into renovating this place out of pocket enough to his own liking so he may move into our house himself after he kicks us out. He did so by claiming that renovations ‘counted as rent’.
When we officially wanted to sign off on a waiver that stated that and wrote one up for him, he claimed that he couldn’t fully understand our English due to moving in here from out of the country, so he couldn’t sign it. This is despite never having this problem before, so it cannot be true.
Additionally, he used my dad’s own tools to make changes to the house and abandoned some of them outside of the house for anyone to steal.
He does nothing for us, and he just wants us out of the picture, even if it means making us homeless.
We have met all of his demands, and it is still not enough. He does NOT seem to care that we cannot afford to live anywhere else.
We have had enough. The kids are losing their childhood. Remember, this isn’t even the first time our landlord has taken advantage of our family’s housing situation.
- Moving Out Of Our Home:
Obviously, we want to move out. However… getting a rental is now more difficult than it was before.
Ever since Covid in 2020, new laws have been applied and applications have become the new way. Everything is automated now.
Landlords are hiding behind applications now, and they won’t even answer phone calls.
The farthest we got was physically going out to see a potential rental only for us to find out we had to fill out a 10-page application for it. As it stands it has turned into something of a bidding war where ‘the best application wins’, and despite our efforts to fill in as many as we can, there’s also a filing process and a nerve-wracking chance we might not get the rental. Time is just not on our side.
Now the little ones have to worry about where they are going to live. Our mom has been grinding out freelance work left and right. Making sure the kids get to go to school, making sure our budget is enough to afford to live in this unkempt home. She is raising all of the children while my dad is out trying to make enough money to make ends meet, but there’s no end in sight.
- Our Plan, And Our Goal:
My mom plans to hopefully make a reasonable down payment on a home that we can all live in safely and peacefully. All we want is to keep our family together.
I want my mom to stop stressing out all the time because she’s a freelance worker doing what she can to raise a large family. My dad’s doing contract work but what he makes isn’t nearly enough to afford a new place to live. Myself and my oldest brother are doing all we can to support them. I’ve been taking as many art commissions as I can on my Twitter while the oldest brother that can work is pooling in his share from his paychecks working retail.
The funding from here will be combined with what little we have saved going into the down payment after living expenses. Reaching the goal, we can cover the closing cost since my mom has been working on her credit. Additional funding would help with emergency costs in between. At worst if we don’t make the goal, anything donated would become a financial cushion for us.
We’ve been moving most of the little kids’ lives. I just want normal, not only for the family as a whole but for them! I want them to enjoy their Christmas and not have to worry about having a roof over their heads in the indefinite future. I want their happiness and their safety above all else. All my life I’ve felt it in the realm of possibility. Now we just need to take the first step.
(Further Details Of My Family’s History With Our Landlord Including Things We've Had To Fix On Our Own:)
- From the get-go, the house was a far cry from picture perfect. The floor and walls were imbalanced to an extreme degree - earning it its funny yet fitting nickname "Clown House." Ceiling tiles had either disappeared or were tumbling down, while roaches were painted onto random surfaces as if mocking us. And that was just the beginning.
- A new owner took over in October 2020. We’ve dealt with our fair share of unreasonable landlords, but I’m pretty sure that this one takes the cake. His shamelessness knew no bounds: demanding rent without making repairs, pressuring us to leave when the eviction moratorium prevented us from finding other housing and ignoring every request we made for major fixes.
- First, the water main burst. He refused to pick up our calls or answer any of our texts, which eventually caused us to fall through the rotted wood of the laundry room floor. In November when it started to get cold, we tried to turn the heat on and it didn't work. We had to pay for a professional to fix it.
- Then, as we were going about our business one day, some of us detected a fishy smell and others noticed an unmistakable urine odor. Eventually, it was uncovered that the scent was actually electrical wiring burning. Fortunately for us, no fire broke out! Yet, in order to protect ourselves from this danger ever again, we had to employ an electrician to install a new electrical panel and rewire the entire house - though expensive, we had to safeguard our family. He himself told us that all it would have taken was a drop of water to set this place ablaze and that this place should be burned to the ground. We hadn't suffered the worst, though.
- During the two consecutive winters, January, February, and March were fraught with frozen pipes which caused us to be without water for days - even weeks! This posed a dire challenge as we had no access to the most basic comforts - flushing toilets, clean dishes, laundry, and of course water to drink, cook, and clean with. Needless to say, taking showers was out of the question too!
- Chalk this one up to the fourth time our family has been ejected from a house because the new owners want to move in. Although this has been our plight for years now, it's time that we looked towards a solution; one which can be found in the comfort of our own home. It is an ideal remedy that will bring us long-lasting peace of mind.
Organiser and beneficiary
Veronica Cousins
Organiser
Buffalo, NY
Bethany Cousins
Beneficiary
