Help Erin afford to stay in Australia

Update, 15th April - now housed; now trying for a partner visa ($9.1k) and current visa renewal ($660)

Heya !!

Now we've got a place, my girlfriend Eve and I are making joint bank account to fund a partner visa and the renewal of my current visa for another year so I can stay in Australia permanently after two and a half years, have less restrictions on the work I can do (can only work for the same business for 6 months and 35% of my pay was taxed on my current visa!!), not have to deal with cost of health insurance ($200 per month), stay away from my abusive family, and live in a country where I actually have a social circle, great community and actually feel safe.

Cost for the partner visa is about $9095, and cost for renewing my current visa before the end of August is $660.

Stability and actually staying here is something I'd really love after nearly 3 years in Australia.

Thanks to you all, we managed to get our old place sorted and cleaned, movers paid on a ridiculously short notice, rent and bond paid for our new place, cost of transport for the ridiculous amount of inspections we did covered, furniture for the 3 of us, applicances and groceries all sorted for the next couple months for all of us.

Prior description before April:

I'm Erin, my girlfriend Eve, and Star, my closest friend of 7 years, are currently Really Going Through It. Our lease is ending on the 7th March, two of us have been unemployed for far too long due to circumstances outside of our control, we are all trying to keep afloat; we desperately need to find a decent roof over our heads; as within the next 9 days we'll have no place to live.

All donations will go towards moving costs; initial bond/security deposit payment and the first month or so of rent; we kind of desperately need to save up, successfully apply for a place As Soon As Feasibly Possible and have enough to afford getting any reasonable place; let alone on a ridiculously short notice.

I debated posting this or not; but we've all reached our breaking point with all of this really, unfortunately we don't really have much else choice at this point but to ask for help out of none but desperation.

I have already spent far too much of my time hopping between places, as well as friends' couches in the past couple years I've been living in Melbourne, I do not have the mental fortitude to go through anything like that again, outside of the fact all three of us has all been through truly unnecessary amounts of shit amongst ourselves for years.

Our collective mental health is on the absolute brink as a result - none of us have been doing remotely well for weeks, we're trying our best to keep ourselves together; none of us have slept remotely well in ages, as things currently stand our mental state amongst all of us hasn't been this Objectively Bad in years. we've all begun to spiral out of general lack of hope; outside of the fact that Eve and I are unemployed, I haven't had any income in months; and none of us remotely want this to end catastrophically.

We have only been able to extend our lease to the 7th solely down to pure luck alone, we managed to get a brief extension, but thereafter we have nowhere to go, we've already been threatened with eviction, our apartment is going on the market as soon as possible, and outside of how crushing consistent rental rejections are, I have also been physically wrecking myself for the past couple days desperately getting our place sorted for an inspection (which is the morning after I post this!!!). When time comes to vacate, none of us have any clue what we can or are able to do housing-wise. We're in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment; our rent is none but absolutely extortionate; and despite numerous attempts of group applications with close friends of ours to try and give us a fighting chance over the past two months, we have gotten absolutely nowhere and had nothing but rejections.

Eve was laid off in mid January from a decent-paying job entirely out of the blue, none of us were expecting this; outside of the landlord refusing to renew our lease a week after. Her fortnightly centrelink payments barely cover a week's worth of rent for our current place; let alone much else in the name of anything else especially with the amount being burnt on rent each month.

Star moved to Melbourne interstate last month so they can find substantially better job opportunities compared to regional Western Australia, as well as the queer social scene being larger and far more established in Melbourne.

I moved to Australia in 2022 to flee a violent abusive ex where I used to live, as well as a true chance of distance from my parents who refuse to see anyone as queer, financially support me in any way despite having more than enough means to do so; outside of that, I've had it rather rough the entire time here. I lost my job last year over immense stress over my last visa application, albeit successful the process destroyed my mental state for months before this and almost killed me, I spent too much time before the past year in really non-ideal living situations, despite being in employment for almost two years I was still earning about ~$100-200 less than anyone I know on welfare here, usually about $400-500 a fortnight (before being taxed by 30% due to my visa!!) if I was lucky. Due to being an immigrant and being in consistently too rough a situation and too skint to afford a partner visa. I feel there is nothing I can do, we all feel absolutely powerless; I've already sold and lost far too many of my own possessions over the past two and a half years that I mentally can't deal with letting go of any more of what little I have.