This is my friend and neighbor Christina. She is a wonderful person with a great sense of humor. She has been a good friend of mine for a few years. Sometimes I take her little chiweenie dog (Babygirl) for walks around the neighborhood, especially at times when she is unable to do so herself. Unfortunately, Christina is struggling to pay for housing and could really use your help.

Christina is a fully disabled adult and so she is unable to work for extra income. About a year ago our landlord starting charging renters at our complex (Fillmore Inn Apartments) for utilities which used to be included in our rent (water, sewer, garbage, and electricity). Effectively, this increased Christina’s rent by about 8% to 16%, depending on the month. She started falling behind pretty quickly, and is still unable to afford these extra expenses. We all live in studio apartments with shared bathrooms and kitchens. This means that even if Christina reduces her usage of utilities, she still has to pay for what her neighbors use. As far as I know, our apartments are the cheapest in town.

For reference, she has a monthly income of about $1,040 and her rent (before utilities) is $730. Now that she has fallen behind, she has also been charged a $73 late fee for last few months. She was already struggling with housing costs more than 70% of her income before these extra utitlity charges and late fees. You might have seen her flying a sign in front of Fred Meyer’s here in Corvallis. She does this regularly to afford food and medicine. However, with an extra $130 or so added to her bill each month, no amount of flying a sign will help her get out of this hole. Our landlord stated (in the eviction notice) that she currently owes $785.05.

Since Christina received an eviction notice on the 10th (five days ago at time of writing), I have helped her apply to every service we can that could help her in this situation. So far, all have either rejected her application for assistance, or we are still waiting to hear back. This eviction notice is putting her under a tremendous amount of stress. We are running out of time, and so this fundraiser is something of a last resort. To be completely honest, this has been difficult for me to write about. Right now Christina is very worried. She is breaking down crying a lot, and I am worried about her. She’s lived on the streets before. She was experiencing homelessness about 4 years ago, right before moving into the apartment she is now currently residing in. She knows how hard it is to be homeless. I’m very worried about her. Please help if you can!