Help give them a Home

Hi my name is Samantha, I set up this fundraiser for my family but mostly my kids.
You see 2020 was a difficult year for us, as it was for most of you.

I lost my job of three years at the beginning of the year and by the time I secured new employment, Covid cases were surging and I found myself facing reduced hours. 

Nevertheless I was determined to stay the course for my kids and keep them in the place they called home.

Summer came and business at work started picking up. I felt thankful because I could now get caught up with our bills. But eventually as winter approached, business began to die down and hours were cut yet again. Being a single income household made all of this extremely difficult. But I am not one to give up.

Winter came and after my hours were cut it became even more difficult to make ends meet. I felt like no matter what I was doing, no matter how hard I tried, I could never get ahead. There was always some obstacle.

We were now at a point where I had to begin talking to the landlord about making a payment plan to catch up on rent. For a while she was able to work with us and I was able to secure some government funding to help. 

But sadly, by February of 2021 we simply could not keep our heads above water. After struggling for well over a year, the eviction papers arrived and we were told to vacate the home we had lived in for over three years.

Do you know what it's like to go from seeing your kids smiling face every day and taking care of them to only seeing them a couple times a week? 

So let me bring you up to date on where things stand currently. Since our eviction in April, my kids have been living with grandparents. But my husband and I have been homeless: alternating between hotels, friends' houses, our small car, wherever we can at the moment.

You might be wondering why we don't have a new place yet. Well it mostly comes down to us now having an eviction on our record, which damages your credit and makes almost everywhere you go hesitant to rent to you.

The good news though, is that we have found a place that will look past the eviction and give us the chance to rent again!

The problem of course is that we need a deposit of $3,000 for first and last months' rent. Like many others we are paycheck to paycheck and it's not easy to put aside that much money when you earn $950 every two weeks and have to pay $350 to $400 a week for a hotel.

So I'm doing the last thing I ever wanted to do which is to ask for help. 

I want nothing more than for my kids to be back with me and for them to be happy and to have a place to call home. So anything you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.