Help Chris and (her dog) Chloe Save Their Home

So, online I go by chris the cynic, I'm a disabled transgender lesbian who's struggled with mental health problems her whole life, I live in the house I grew up in with my dog Chloe, and I need help to save our home.

Chloe is not a tarot card reader, but more than five years later, that's still my favorite picture of her. It's actually the second time I found her like that, because the first time I didn't get to my camera in time to get a photo.

Apart from Chloe, the past five years were especially bad for me, and I'm finally starting to turn things around, but without outside help it'll come too late to save our home, and I also don't know if I'll still be able to take care of Chloe if I have to find somewhere else to live. With help I should be on the way to owning our home.

The numbers add up going forward: even though my income is very limited, it's enough to cover expenses and save a bit as well provided two things happen.

The first is that repairs need to be paid for. Part of the agreement around me living here was that I'd handle repairs and maintenance, but for years I was struggling just to make myself eat and drink, so a lot of stuff didn't get fixed. Recently, because of a sort of a sort of bureaucratic reshuffling, the previous insurance policy on the house had to be replaced, meaning that the insurance policy that should have helped pay for repairs no longer exists. Everything will need to be paid out of pocket.

The second is paying stuff off. When my depression was at its worst, I wasn't the best at managing finances. I also didn't get help I qualified for because I didn't get paperwork filled out on time. The result was having to pay for a lot of stuff on credit. I knew that this wasn't a good thing, but I needed stuff--like food and heating oil--right then, and with how things were going I didn't even know how much longer I'd be alive.

Now I have enough debt, at a high enough interest rate, the cost of servicing the debt means I can't keep up with regular expenses anymore, so I have to pay for some of those expenses with credit, and everything gets worse.

So far the only thing I haven't been able to pay at all is heating oil. That sucks, because sensory processing issues mean I can't take cold showers (I really want to take a shower), but pretty soon I won't be able to pay for things harder to live without than summertime heating oil.

I think I'll add more about Chloe and myself later, but right now I just want to get this posted.