<div>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.
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<div>The short version is this:
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<div>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.
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<div>Right now we're at a tipping point such that, by summer's end, either I'll own my home free and clear, or it'll be sold out from under me and Chloe and I will probably be homeless. This is the home I grew up in, but there's more at stake than just losing my childhood home, which is the only home I've ever known.
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<div>Barring - like - divine intervention, time travel, or something equally outlandish, there will <em>never</em> be this little standing between me and home ownership again. In fact, unless I fully overcome my disabilities, something I've been trying and failing to do for most of my life, if I lose my home now, I'll probably never be in a position to own home <strong>ever again.</strong>
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<div>But, even though the money required is tiny by the standards of buying a house (literally a fraction of a down payment) it's far, <em>far</em> too much for me to raise on my own.
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<div>That's the short version.
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<div>To start the long version, the government classifies me as permanently disabled, though I've always hoped, and still hope, that I'll be able to support myself one day. I'm on SSI because of that, and the rules regarding SSI and donations are so counter-intuitive that people instinctively think it's a scam when I tell them what needs to happen regarding money-handling for donations to actually help me.
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<div>I've asked people to look things up themselves. Usually they don't, but even they do, and they see with their own eyes that it's what the rules say, it still <em>feels</em> like a scam to the point the people who <em>could</em> help usually <em>won't</em> help.
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<div>Originally, I didn't understand the rules myself, and am still being punished for doing things the wrong way as a result of not understanding. That's part of what's wrong, but a bigger part is that this is only the second time I've gotten someone to agree to help me handle the money from donations the <em>right way</em>.
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<div>When I've had problems and fallen short, and I have because the last few years have been Hell, I couldn't actually get help, and had to pay for things on credit, the debt that generated built up interest, and there came a point where payments on the debt meant that I'd fall short even when there <em>weren't </em>problems.
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<div>Now I finally have shit mostly together, with the only major outstanding ongoing problem is the massive amounts of debilitating anxiety caused by facing down the possibility of losing my house. The thing is, all of the damage done by before I had shit together is still there.
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<div>Part of the that is the high interest debt, because it's big enough and gathering interest fast enough that paying <em>it</em> takes too much out of my monthly income for me to be self sustaining.
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<div>There's a smattering of small one off things, but for the most part, the rest of it is deferred maintenance.
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<div>Part of why I'm at risk of losing the house is that I was supposed to maintain the house. I haven't. At the start of this year my mental health had been really bad since early 2017, much worse since 2020, and the worst it'd ever been since since 2022.  I'm finally coming out of that and making progress on improving life of a sort I haven't made since 2017, and I <em>would</em> finally be doing long deferred maintenance, but I can't <em>afford</em> to do any right now.
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<div>Also, a bureaucratic reshuffling meant that my the previous property insurance policy needed to be replaced with a new one, so all of the money paid into the old policy, which <em>should have</em> helped to pay for the repairs and other maintenance the house needs, effectively disappeared into a black hole.
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<div>I need this money both to pay down enough of the high interest debt to afford ordinary bills, and to pay for the maintenance because if I fail to do <em>either</em> of those things, Chloe and I lose our home.
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<div>If I can get this money and do those things, the numbers all add up properly, and I'll be self-sufficient, and I'll be able to support us going forward. 
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<div>Now let's talk anxiety.  Usually, my anxiety is the least of my mental health concerns.  Lately it's really come into its own in the worst way possible.
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<div>Normally I'd snap a photo of my home so people could see what I'm asking them to help save, but my anxiety has been through the roof, people are openly talking about exterminating trans people, and I'm not up for a photo online if it could be used by an anonymous transphobe to figure out my street address.
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<div>That's why the only photo so far is of Chloe <em>inside</em> the house.
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<div><span style="font-family:inherit;font-size:1rem;color:inherit;">On that subject, Chloe is not a tarot card reader, but in 2020 I found her like that several times, and that's the first time I got to my camera quickly enough to capture it.  Five years later, it's still my favorite Chloe picture.</span>
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<div>There's also politics.  This is not a good time to be a disabled trans woman in the US, and some of the things being talked about would destroy me unless, like, this fundraiser magically raised a hundred timers as much as I'm asking for, and maybe even then.
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<div>I've also spent the past month completely paralyzed by anxiety, even though in many ways things are going to best they've <em>been</em> going in almost a decade.  Even though I checked, double checked, triple checked, and then checked even more times during which I lost count, and every time the result was that I <em>am</em> doing things in the convoluted way that SSI requires, I'm still <em>terrified</em> that I've missed some detail, I'm doing something wrong, and all will come to ruin.
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<div>That's why, for a month or so, I haven't done anything to get people to <em>see</em> this fundraiser, and all the donations are from the first day (the last time I did get it seen.)  I'm gonna try to change that today.
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<div>That said, apart from donations a huge thing that would help me is signal boosting.  Eight years of increasingly bad mental health have all but eliminated my reach, both on and offline, and this is the most money I've ever needed in my life, so I could really help spreading news of it far and wide.
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Michael Ikeda

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Help Chris and (her dog) Chloe Save Their Home

Just $626$ to go! Make an impact.

Help Chris and (her dog) Chloe Save Their Home

Just $626 to go!
Make an impact.