<div><strong><em>"As tired the fight for my survival I've been in from the constant 36 years of it, I don't give up so easily. Especially on myself."</em></strong>
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<div>My name is Ali May, I’m a non-binary alien with a love for self expression, curiosity for knowledge, creative flair, passion for community care, and dog parent to my bb Dexter. Life for me has really been a fight, it’s barely a chance to stop and catch my breath. Now today I’m tired, I need to stop living for the end, and living to live. I am asking for help during the most vulnerable housing crisis of my life.
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<div>My support dog, Dexter, has been my constant companion through some of the hardest chapters of my life. Through housing instability, abuse, isolation, and uncertainty, he has remained a source of safety, grounding, and unconditional love.
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<div>Anyone who knows Dexter knows that while he may be a big boy, he has an even bigger heart. He rarely leaves my side and has helped me navigate challenges that would have been much harder to face alone. Finding stable housing is not just about securing a roof over my head. It is about ensuring that both of us can remain together in a safe and secure home where we can finally begin to heal.
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<div>For as long as I can remember, home has never truly felt safe. Throughout my life I have experienced abuse, financial control, housing instability, and repeated situations where my safety depended on circumstances outside of my control. Today, those experiences have caught up with me all at once.
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<div>I am currently facing an urgent housing emergency while trying to rebuild my life after years of surviving situations that damaged my financial security, mental wellbeing, and ability to establish long-term stability. Multiple experiences of financial abuse have left lasting impacts on my credit and housing options, creating barriers that make securing a home far more difficult than it should be.
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<div>Despite<em> everything</em>, I am <em>not </em>giving up.
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<div>I have spent years studying the harms I have experienced, learning about systemic barriers, disability, poverty, abuse, and harm reduction, and working to understand how these systems affect not only me but many others who face even greater obstacles. I am actively taking steps to create a different future for myself.
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<div>Part of that work includes establishing a voluntary trusteeship and seeking financial literacy support so that I can build sustainable financial stability. I am creating systems of accountability and support because I want this next chapter to be different from every chapter that came before it.
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<div>The funds raised will help cover:
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<div>My goal is not simply to survive the next few weeks.
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<div>My goal is to finally build the safety, stability, and security that I have spent my entire life searching for.
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<div>If you are able to contribute, share this campaign, or help spread the word, I would be deeply grateful. Every donation, no matter the size, helps create a future that is safer, more stable, and built on hope rather than crisis.
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<div>For most of my life, I have carried an anchor made of hurt.
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<div>The weight of abuse, instability, loss, and survival has shaped nearly every decision I've made. So much of my energy has gone toward simply staying afloat that I have rarely had the chance to discover who I am beyond surviving.
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<div>This fundraiser is about more than housing. It is about creating the conditions that finally allow me to live.
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<div>I am ready to stop measuring my life by the crises I have endured and start measuring it by the future I am building. I want to create a home where safety is not temporary, where rest is possible, where healing can happen, and where I can invest my energy into growth instead of survival.
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<div>In many ways, this feels like the beginning of a second era of my life. Not because the past disappears, but because I am no longer willing to let it define what comes next. I am fighting for the chance to put down the weight I have carried for so long and step into a future built on stability, dignity, community, and hope.
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<div>One of my biggest dreams is to one day become a foster parent.
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<div>For as long as I can remember, I have carried a deep desire to help children who have experienced the kinds of hurts I knew growing up. The children who feel forgotten. The children who feel unseen. The children who have spent so long adapting to survival that they no longer remember what safety feels like.
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<div>When I was young, there were many things I needed that I did not receive. There were moments when I felt invisible, moments when the adults around me failed to protect me, and moments when I struggled to understand why life seemed so much harder for some children than others.
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<div>As I have grown older, I have come to understand that while I cannot change what happened to me, I can choose what I do with those experiences.
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<div>I do not dream of replacing anyone's parent. I dream of being a safe and steady adult in a child's life. Someone who can teach practical life skills, emotional literacy, self-worth, and resilience. Someone who understands that every child arrives with a story, a culture, a history, and connections that deserve to be honored rather than erased.
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<div>My hope is to one day provide the kind of stability that allows a child to discover who they are beneath their pain. To remind them that they matter, that they are capable, and that they deserve love, dignity, and opportunity.
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<div>Before I can help create that kind of home for others, I must first build one for myself.
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Anonymous

Jennifer Clarke Wilkes

Laura Scrivener

Jesse Pohlman

Stephanie Bertucci

Andrea Pitman

Jeffrey Ricker

Callie Carter

Philip Roberts

From Survival to Stability: Help Us Secure Housing & Safety

From Survival to Stability: Help Us Secure Housing & Safety

Still $2,264 to go. Help us build momentum.