Help Alice Start A New Chapter In Los Angeles

Alice Husum, 66 years old, has had a rough year. Let's come together as a community and help her start a new chapter.

Alice is currently living on the street, staying mostly in Sparks. She has only been unhoused for a few months. We are fundraising to help her relocate to Los Angeles, where she has a friend that is committed to helping her rebuild. We want to make sure that Alice is able to preserve as much of herself and her dignity as she can - as such, we are hoping to fund a U-Haul for her so she can move to LA without having to lose everything she owns. Currently, her possessions are in a storage unit in Sparks that is paid for until the end of the year. Let's get Alice out of the cold, on the road with her things and dignity intact, and onto the next chapter of her life.

A little about Alice,

"My name is Alice and I was born and raised in Kitzbuehel Austria 66 years ago. My family was wealthy and considered a 'good family' in the community. I learned skiing at the age of 4 years old and even did some racing, swimming in the cold and clear mountain lakes, hiking and later on climbing.

My seemingly idyllic childhood unfortunately was overshadowed and impacted by the mental illness of my father’s wife and I emancipated myself at the age of 16 years old.

The years of my youth were filled with travels, adventure, meeting amazing people from all countries of the world, experiencing different cultures, cuisines, the Arts, philosophies, religions and so much more!

I moved to New York City where I met the man that 3 years later became my husband. That was the beginning of a 40 year relationship - on and off - with the Narcissist.

Please know that I do not define myself as a Victim but the dark traits of Narcissists are extremely subtle and such traits do victimize.

Amongst other efforts, twice I have done my best to become independent of him by building up a business as a Real Estate Agent in New York City and later as a Real Estate Broker in Chicago. Both efforts were sabotaged. Domestic Violence was also a difficult part of my life.

In the winter of 2022 I made the decision to permanently leave and I did so finally in July of 2022.. I have been in psychodynamic Therapy for years and by December 2022 my Therapist “dropped” me.

Such an event and the lack of any support system resulted in a mental breakdown during last winter and I did not follow through with my plans at that time to build MY Life finally. Finances dwindled away and by April 2023 I lost my apartment.

I refuse to become chronically homeless . It is a fact that 70 % of abused women do not leave the relationship because they are at risk to become homeless.

I have since built a support system with an old and trusted friend of mine and also reconnected with my spiritual community for further support in my “Good Fight” to reclaim my life.

Please know that I have the resilience and tenacity to do so.

At this point I am reaching out to my Brothers and Sisters in Humanity to help me with the necessary Hand Up to relocate me to Los Angeles so I can start the good work of a productive and meaningful life."

We are fundraising with a specific goal, outlined by Alice: she has a friend in Los Angeles who is willing to 'receive' her and do what he can to get her back on her feet. It is extremely important to her to hold on to many of her vital possessions - pieces of her life, her dignity, her past and eventually her future - which are currently in storage. We have paid for storage until the end of December. After that, the plan is for Alice to rent a U-Haul, fill it up with her things from storage, and drive it down to meet her friend in Los Angeles. She has a current driver's license and has made long U-Haul drives in the past (most recently earlier this year when she came to Reno). U-Haul has an active deal where they offer a month of free storage with a one-way large haul. This way, Alice will have a place to store her things once she gets down there. The following month is affordable, too, so we are factoring that into the cost of the fundraiser - giving Alice a few months' cushion will help ensure she can get settled properly. We have attached the U-Haul quote with relevant info + pricing below.

Here is a breakdown of the funding we need (bear in mind that the U-Haul is our priority - $1500 would be ideal but, of course, every little bit helps!):

U-Haul - $550

Extra month of storage (this gets us through February) - $130

Gas to LA - $250-300

Motel contingency (in case Alice needs a few nights on either end of the trip) - $300

Emergency/padding - $250

Before we met her, Alice had already put together - without any outside help - a previous GoFundMe to help her keep a storage unit that contained all of her possessions. For a few reasons, we decided starting a new, separate fundraiser would help us bring more attention to her needs now, which are not storing her things but packing them up, getting out of Reno and the cold, and moving on with her life. You can see the previous fundraiser here,

https://www.gofundme.com/f/2wqc7b-dire-financial-emergency

Here is a link to a video Alice captured (again, completely on her own) to tell her story and explain what the funds would go towards. This video was taken only about a month and a half ago - look how different Alice looks:

https://www.facebook.com/alice.husum/videos/324516950312490

Living outside, especially in the winter time, takes a heavy, heavy toll, both on the body and on the mind. Even though Alice is feeling hopeful that she will soon be on her way to rebuilding, you can plainly see these are almost two different people (in the Facebook video Alice took and then in our video above), separated by just a month of time. One Alice has just recently hit hard times and looks and feels like someone with just a few unfortunate snags to iron out before her life gets back on track. The other Alice is exhausted, barely holding on, and painfully aware that, if things don't improve soon, life on the street may become much darker, more serious and more permanent than a frustrating bump in the road. We, as a community, have a clear opportunity to get Alice back on her feet. Let's get her out of the cold and give her a real chance to rebuild her life.