Hello,

My name is Cas and I'm a queer, poc artist who is currently homeless and in need of secure housing ASAP.

A brief rundown is that I’ve essentially jumped from home to home in the past few years. I could not stay with my mother due to her new husband not wanting any of her kids around, so I ended up staying with my abusive, misogynistic uncle and cousins on a car ranch, where I helped manage the animals. The situation grew more unstable, and I had to eventually leave California and ended up with a friend in Flagstaff, Arizona. That’s where I finally made it to Phoenix, Arizona, with my brother roughly six months ago.

Never having a roommate or living with other people outside our family, my brother had first seen me as a live-in maid. He had me do all the chores and provide free on-the-clock medical care for his elderly dog. I would be chastised if I did not give a full-week notice if I wanted to be out with friends for a few days or didn’t come home and complete every itemized chore finished would result in verbal berating and more threats.

Eventually, I got a job at Petsmart as a dog bather and did everything I could to help with rent, keep the house clean, and keep the dog safe and medicated every 6 hours on the hour.. But it was never enough; my brother was verbally abusive, manipulative and controlling; Using constant threats of my soon-to-be homelessness if I didn’t do everything he told me to do. Things finally reached a breaking point this past week when my brother told me that the rent would double if it was not paid in full by the evening of the first. What he had failed to ever mention is that one time, he did not pay rent on time in the past and has received a penalty on his record. Meaning that we had no-later than noon to have it in full, or else rent would double. I had no involvement in this, and only after hearing about this, he came out with the truth and showed me the eviction notice he had been hiding from me.

He then went on to relentlessly demand money in-full by 6’ O’Clock on October 1st. Before it was even able to show-up in my bank account, he blamed our inevitable eviction on me, and using me as a scapegoat for the rent doubling and only digging-us further into financial ruin.

When I wasn't able to send him money I did not have in my account at the time he demanded, he decided that I no longer could access my room or things and fixed the deadbolt so he could lock-me out. The money did not show up til 8pm that night, he locked me-out anyway. From there I wandered the street to look for a place to spend the night and eventually found myself at a local park that had a tennis court. My phone was dying and I only had the clothes on my back, so I rested in the tennis court under the stars until I gathered my strength up.

Fortunately, my friends weren’t going to give up and they organized a plan to quickly come get me., I am currently with them as they have given me temporary shelter, but my time is limited here as they are also working on moving out of this house. I’ve attempted numerous times to go back for my things such as my clothes, chargers and pills, but my brother had deadbolted the door and has parked inside, meaning my key was useless so long as he’s there.

Because I had nowhere to stay other than my friends, I’m unable to get to work as I don’t have a car. I’m dealing with both joblessness and homelessness and I could really use help getting back on my feet.

I have friends in the LA area who are trying to help me find housing, and now I just need the funds to get my things and myself over there and secure a safe place to stay for now. I’m starting with asking for 15k to cover the cost of security deposits, the first month of rent, food, utilities, medication, train ticket, and other costs that tend to pile up when you’re moving out of state. I can also stay here in Arizona, but I would prefer to try and get to LA as I'm looking for a job in the industry.

Any help is appreciated, and even spreading the word means the world to me. I'm grateful I have people in my corner to help me, but I'm still scared and unsure about what the future holds.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to listen.