HELP A HOMELESS SINGLE JEWISH MOTHER IN MONSEY

Update... February 28 2003...

I had to return my kid’s snacks and two bags of beans yesterday….

I’m looking for 2 or 3 people in the Monsey area with trucks who would be able to help me unload and go through my storage units and help me transfer everything to one cheaper unit. I really desperately need to get this done. If you or anyone you know can help me out with this, it would make a huge difference in our lives and our goal of having our own place to call home again.

About two weeks ago, at the last hour I raised just enough money to save our storage from being auctioned off. Yesterday the rent was due again and I couldn't pay it. I have to pay for it. I owe 500 dollars on one unit that is in someone else's name and I can not, not pay it, they are pretty fed up with me and rightfully so, so they will give it up. I owe another 500 dollars on what's in my name, and I can't even get into it if I dont pay it, I can't get into it right now. I want to pay for this month and get our things out of there into one unit that is 400.00 a month. If I don't pay for this month I’ll wind up snowballing it into foreclosure again…

Please let me know if you can help with the physical or truck part of it and please donate whatever you can and share my link wherever you can so that it reaches as many people as possible and I can get this done and not have to keep worrying about it.

I am looking for a job and trying to find remote work too for when my kids aren't in school, but I am having a very difficult time doing that when I can't even afford to put gas in my car and I am busy playing attorney because I can't afford an attorney, I’m the paralegal for myself too.. I am hoping to be able to clean houses for pesach. The ESQ maid.

I need to continue playing attorney and there are alot of court costs and fees that I can't afford. The fact that I can't get or file the things I need is a serious issue and a major setback in resolving the legal aspects of our horrible situation.

On top of all of the above I need to feed my kids every day and provide them with their basic necessities and pay the bills. I still have to keep our car insurance, my phone service and basic important things like that. I can survive another year or two in the rags I've been wearing since the day this hell of an adventure started, my kids deserve more than that though and should never ever experience that.

Purim is in a week from now and my children are so excited, I have not mentioned anything to them about the fact that I have absolutely no way to get them the costumes they want so badly and the gas to go drive to the few people they decided they want to go to ( they have never done that, we have always been home on purim) and give them shalach manos, I don't have the money for that shalach manos either, I had to return beans yesterday. Yes literally beans, and my kids snacks…. But I just smile and say wow! That sounds so amazing! I'm sure we're going to have the best purim ever!!! Meanwhile I’m panicking.

My son's birthday is after Purim, he wants a laptop and I don't have money to buy him a lollipop, nevermind a laptop… But I smile and promise him that he will have an amazing birthday and 11 will be awesome!!! We don't even have a home, but I’m acting smiling happy Mommy!!! No,actually I’m a terrified exhausted, miserable nervous wreck and my kids just don't know it yet. I’d really like to get us out of Mitzrayim though. It's time. I really don't know how much longer I can keep this charade on for my kids.

After Purim and my son's birthday hit me… Then here comes Pesach….Days of no school and “amazing” I have no way of pulling that off. We're in Mitzrayim and my kids just haven't realized that yet because by some miracle I have been able to shield them from all of the Maakos that have hit us so far, I don't want us to get hit by the rest of the maakos, but I see them coming, and if I dont figure something out, I see maakos Choshech happening, because I dont have what it takes, a village. I want to split the sea and walk us into our new happy life…. And with your help I can do that, without it I’m going to drown…

5 days after pesach, it's my daughters birthday, and she also thinks she’s going to have an amazing birthday, because in her words …. Five is going to be EPIC!!!! I am epic broke and have no money for her to turn 5. But she needs an EPIC birthday with rainbows and unicorns and nail polish and … Mommy! It's gonna be so AMAZING!!! Mommy has no underwear because she can't afford it!!! yay! But I don't say that, I smile and lie and say… I love you baby girl! I know your birthday is gonna be EPIC!!!!

I really can't do this anymore, I don't have what it takes… I had to return my childrens snacks and two bags of beans yesterday, no, I am not joking. It takes a village, and I don't have that,... I am just one lone tired soldier on the front line carrying the innocent children on my shoulders as I dodge the bullets and climb out of the trenches and landmines on an empty stomach and no sleep… Will you strap your boots up and join my army and help me build a village?...

Yesterday I had to return my kids snacks and two bags of beans… I need a village.

Yesterday I went into Monsey Glatt to get my children something for dinner and snacks for school. When they ran my debit card I was 18 dollars short. I asked the cashier if I could go talk to the office, he said yes. I walked in and the lady said can I help you? I said “this is so embarrassing to ask” and she said… “No, just ask, nothing is embarrassing” and I said this definitely is but I have to… I explained that I was 18 dollars short, I’m a regular customer with an account that's always in the positive or just at zero and asked if I could leave them my drivers license or something and have the balance put on my account and bring it in tomorrow… It would cost me more than 18 dollars to get a replacement drivers license so I had no reason not to come back. And they said no, what are we going to do with your driver's license?? And then me and my mashugana drivers license idea stood at the register, in one of the three homeless outfits I own, it was actually the same shmatas I walked out of my home in when we were evicted and became homeless…. in front of everyone and watched the woman unpack the bags of things I wanted to buy and delete the snacks for my kids to take to school and two bags of beans and noodles that I wanted to buy, when she was done deleting them she said “OH YOU HAVE 6 DOLLARS IN YOUR ACCOUNT SO YOU CAN GET A LITTLE MORE” …. A little more…. I left with the chopped meat, noodles and spaghetti sauce for their dinner. I got into my decrepit old car and just started sobbing. I could not believe I just stood there in front of people in my disheveled homeless clothes, while the manager lady or whatever she is took 12 dollars worth of groceries that I was trying to buy for my kids out of my shopping bags. 12 damn dollars… because I didn't have enough money. The fact that I couldn't even afford the two bags of beans really hurt. That was a blow to my ego that I don't know how to deal with. Beans!!! The food that is on every single list of what to buy if you are in the gutter and can't afford anything else, BEANS!!!! I couldn't afford dinner and BEANS. But I didn't have time to sob much, I had to drive my decrepit little old car with less than ¼ tank of gas in it to school and smile and pick my children up so I could take them back to the temporary house that opened their doors to us and make them spaghetti… Today it's book club day or something at school and I need to give them both money to participate, and I have zero dollars and almost no gas to get them to school and back. They couldn't participate in the last school fun day, Valentines day because I had no money…

Mi Sh’enichnas Adar Marbin B'simcha!

Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you have any other ideas or suggestions please let me know I am open to them. If you have a bag of cholent beans and lima beans that you don't want I’ll take those too… And if you have a rich uncle who has 2 grand sitting around that he’s just waiting to give away, send him my way, or if you just want to donate or lend me 2 grand that would be amazing… And as my 4 year old would say, that would be epic…

Here is a link to my go fund me. https://gofund.me/8bddab2c I am trying to set it up on the chesed fund because its cheaper and overall a better platform to deal with. I also have paypal, Venmo, Zelle, and Cashapp all

connected to my email or phone number. [email redacted] or [phone redacted]

Tracht Gut Vet Zein Gut!

A Freilichin Purim.

Leah.

My name is Leah (Kleim) Wechsler, I am a single mother with two young children, a 10 year old boy and a 4 year old girl. We live in Monsey NY and for 86 days we were literally HOMELESS. Technically, we are still homeless now, but thank G-D, now we have somewhere (very temporary) to stay. Our storage unit with all of our possessions is in foreclosure and will be auctioned off on Thursday February 16th.

If I do not pay the $1700.00 that I owe on our storage unit by Wednesday February 15 2023 (tomorrow) we will lose everything we own. I can not let that happen.There is a $4,000.00 oxigen machine in storage that was lent to me because I had Covid. I have to return it. If I don't return it next week I have to pay for it, for that alone it’s smarter for me to pay for the storage unit.. There are also things in there that are irreplaceable. My grandfather's wedding ring is in there, the wedding ring he wore when he married my grandmother so she could escape the Nazis, all of my childrens baby pictures that I have no copies of, the only pictures that I have of my two sisters that passed away. There are also boxes of legal documents that I desperately need right now in a divorce proceeding and that are impossible to ever replace. Just to name a few. I will also need to keep the storage space until we do get our own place to live. Please find it in your heart to donate generously to help me that it off.

On October 31st 2022 me and my two young children were evicted from our home in Monsey. The “landlord”/my brother in law, came to our house with a court order and the sheriff's department. Everything we own was dumped outside on the front lawn like garbage, even the important things I had packed up to take with us.

I had no money, but at the last minute someone with a truck and trailer showed up to help us try to save our belongings. And I was also able to come up with enough money to rent a storage space.

My children were devastated when they watched everything we own get dumped outside like it was garbage, but they were very relieved that people came to help us and get it into storage. And then we were homeless… My children have been through so much throughout my divorce and they have lost so much, but losing the only home they have ever known was a horrifying life altering event that they will never forget. No child deserves that. Every child deserves a home.

For 86 days we were literally HOMELESS. I started a fundraiser on Paypal to feed my children and get them their immediate needs and get us an apartment. I was not able to get an apartment. Thank G-D my children had a warm bed to sleep in every night though… One night at a time I was able to pay for a dump motel room, I was able to feed my children and get them everything they needed and I was able to keep my phone on and the car insurance on our 2002 Honda Civic paid up to date. My credit was destroyed quickly though, and now I have delinquent accounts and creditors contacting me every day and I have no way to pay them.

I have contacted and applied for help with every organization that has been suggested and had no luck. I spent countless nights calling Rabbi’s and people who were suggested to me, begging them, can you please help us with a motel room just for tonight?… And then to be told, no we don't do that.

After 86 days of being homeless, I was physically and mentally exhausted and terrified. It was getting harder and harder to come up with enough money to feed my children, and then I had to beg for money for another night in a motel room too. So many times I would pack up our garbage bags full of our life and start packing it into my car after I dropped my children off at school, because we had to check out at 11am, and a miracle always happened, either after I checked out, or an hour or so before someone would reach out to me to help us, and pay for another night. I was starting to lose hope though… When I had to dig through my car and everything we now owned, searching for loose change to get gas to take my kids to school, I was petrified, how would I get back to pick them up later? At that point I knew I couldn't keep this up for us anymore and that was the scariest feeling ever. Without a miracle we would be sleeping in our car, and that would quickly come to an end because I couldn't even afford gas… And then we would lose our car too, along with the garbage bags in it that contained the only possessions we had access too… And then I would lose my children, because we would be sleeping on the street in the freezing cold… And then my children would lose their mother too.

I had asked everyone I know for help, and they have helped when they could. I have asked my ex husband to help us get a place to live, or money for food and gas or even just for my phone bill so I could call other people for help, he said he couldn't help us though,

And then a miracle happened… My friend called me and gave me a name and number, he said call them, they want to help you. I called the number and spoke with Rabbi and Mrs. Tzadik (that's a good name for them) We talked about my situation, and then they generously offered their home for us to stay in and gave us most of their basement. I was in utter shock, I could not believe what was happening. It was almost Shabbos though, so they sent me money for food and what I needed and then we moved into their house.

Rabbi and Mrs. Tzadik do not have much themselves, but they opened their heart’s and their home and welcomed us like family. My children love it here, they feel welcomed and cared for and they keep telling me “ Mommy I’m so happy we have this house to live in” or “Mommy I really like this new house we live in”

This is a very short term solution though. Rabbi and Mrs. Tzadik are moving away in a few short months. My children don't know that, I haven't told them that because I don't want them to worry. I don't want my children to ever worry about having a home again… And that is why I desperately need your help.

I am looking for a job that I can work during the hours my kids are in school and I am going to try to clean houses for pesach. I have zero dollars, my bank account is in the negative and I am almost out of gas again. I have been wearing the same three shmata outfits that I own and a pair of crocs as my shoes weather its raining, snowing or just freezing. I need to buy my children food and necessities. Both of my children have school events this week where they need to bring in something for everyone in the class. Purim and Pesach are coming up and both of their birthdays are coming up at the same time too. My 2002 car needs to go to a mechanic before it dies on me…

Please donate as generously as you can or whatever you can, and please share this campaign link everywhere you can. It takes a village to raise a child, so I am asking you to be part of my village, and help us get a home. I have references and legal documentation if anyone needs that.

To read more about our story you can go to… https://leahkleimwechsler.blogspot.com

And for our Amazon list go to https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1W69IOHY1WQY?ref_=wl_share

I also have PayPal, Venmo, cashapp, and zelle, which don't charge any fees. If you are donating for us to be able to pay for our storage so we don't lose everything we have, please use PayPal, venmo, cashapp or zelle if you can because I can access them instantly and here it will take 2-3 days and then be too late.

I wanted to use The Chesed Fund but I was having a problem uploading things I needed. As soon as I am able to I will use The Chesed Fund. The fees arent as high and its less complicated.

Tracht Gut Vet Zain Gut!

Leah (Kleim) Wechsler

845 [phone redacted]

[email redacted]