Help Two Disabled Trans Men out the Shelter
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My husband and I currently homeless having been kicked out of our respective abusive transphobic and homophobic homes. Abuse that has strongly continued even we’ve been the shelter system since December 2nd. My mother has been aggressively harassment through phone and email. She has harrassed calling 25+ times to Stephen’s mother and step-father demanding that they tell her our address. I have blocked her across all devices and she continues to make accounts to message me threating emails that range from briding me to come home and separate from my husband effectively abandoning him in the shelter and to kidnapping me and placing me in a mental institution. My mother has a strong history of stalking, sabatogating and violence towards others. On May, she sent two demonstrating that she knew about the Gofundme which you can continue to donate to. Here. As as well as knowing my address. I’m terrified of her. Terrified I placed a report against her that may or may not have resulted in her arrest as a required step of getting an order of protection against her.
Prior to homelessness since my mother had been consistently threatening to kick us out we pondered ending the shelter system and pursuing a LINC voucher. When we became homeless and created this donation post we continued with the LINC voucher in mind. Unfortunately, due to the slow and outwardly hostile shelter system, we were delayed months in pursuit of the voucher despite having the recommended savings because neither my husband and I were working. Both my husband and I were enrolled in school full time. He is currently taking a medical leave from school due to this surgery. We had been entitled to a disability during the duration of his months’ long recovery but we not informed that it was an option by our shelter despite providing extensive documentary in regards to the surgery multiple. There was have been numerous incidents of mismanagement and misinformation which has prevented us from going forward and reaching our goal which getting out of the shelter.
We are pursuing alternative methods of income since “earned” income is required to even get to SEE a housing specialist ( the single housing specialist assigned to our shelter of 500+ families ). We have been pursuing child support since my husband and I are both nineteen now but were 18 and 19 respectively when entering the shelter system. However, despite filling out the forms months ago, my court date at least is in late July before I can start receiving payments. And without payment as a sort of income, we are barred from seeing the Housing Specialist at to even get more information about Vouchers.
We have tried through our efforts to find out more housing. We have contacted multiple DHS entities, outside non-profit organizations, tried the advice of friends going through the shelter system but since the LINC vouchers have been morphed into one, the process is very new and unclear. We have no other option but to just wait but desperately need money to survive in the meantime. Neither Stephen or I could work. He because of his surgery as well his debilitating mental illnesses and me due to my severe and chronic disabilities. Believe me if either of us work we have—we just want to be out of this terrible shelter so badly. Every day is just a struggle to find the will not to kill ourselves, I apologize for the triggering statement but it’s true. We’re desperate. We just want to get out and start our lives. Six months ago we would have never imagined being living like this and we just want to live again because right now we are just bareknuckling it and going through the motions.
We have been notoriously underpaid by our benefits only received Cash Assistance of 30 dollars for us both every two weeks when we were entitled at least $90 dollars and more since upon enrollment we were in school. As of right now, our meagre cash assistance is FROZEN despite our filling out the required cash assistance rectification. Despite living a non-cooking facility meaning that our shelter provides NO FOOD of any kind and doesn’t offer any cooking equipment besides a single microwave. Food stamps can only pay for cold food—meaning we are meant to pay ingredients and cook at home but COOKING EQUIPMENT ( hotplates, toasters, rice cookers, instapots, etc ) is forbidden in our shelter. As a consolation, we are supposed to recieve restaurant dollars to buy hot food but haven’t received a single cent of it the duration we have had benefits despite showing information that our shelter is a non-cooking facility multiple times. We are both disabled and mentally ill and cooking is not an option so we ultimately end up settling for cheap fast food which has taken a terrible toll on our physical and mental health as well as quickly use our limited donation money. I am chronically sick as a result of our poor diet.
Due to the halt of donations we were forced to dip into our donation from our Gofundme which we wanted to keep as purely savings when we finally get to the point of seeing the housing specialist. Unfortunately, at this point we used all the donation money, all 2,400 to simply keep surviving since GoFundme took a percentage of the 2,500. We have made a new Gofundme aka this one you are viewing right now which includes once again the saving requirement set by the shelter as well as money necessary to keep us afloat till July/August.
Prior to homelessness since my mother had been consistently threatening to kick us out we pondered ending the shelter system and pursuing a LINC voucher. When we became homeless and created this donation post we continued with the LINC voucher in mind. Unfortunately, due to the slow and outwardly hostile shelter system, we were delayed months in pursuit of the voucher despite having the recommended savings because neither my husband and I were working. Both my husband and I were enrolled in school full time. He is currently taking a medical leave from school due to this surgery. We had been entitled to a disability during the duration of his months’ long recovery but we not informed that it was an option by our shelter despite providing extensive documentary in regards to the surgery multiple. There was have been numerous incidents of mismanagement and misinformation which has prevented us from going forward and reaching our goal which getting out of the shelter.
We are pursuing alternative methods of income since “earned” income is required to even get to SEE a housing specialist ( the single housing specialist assigned to our shelter of 500+ families ). We have been pursuing child support since my husband and I are both nineteen now but were 18 and 19 respectively when entering the shelter system. However, despite filling out the forms months ago, my court date at least is in late July before I can start receiving payments. And without payment as a sort of income, we are barred from seeing the Housing Specialist at to even get more information about Vouchers.
We have tried through our efforts to find out more housing. We have contacted multiple DHS entities, outside non-profit organizations, tried the advice of friends going through the shelter system but since the LINC vouchers have been morphed into one, the process is very new and unclear. We have no other option but to just wait but desperately need money to survive in the meantime. Neither Stephen or I could work. He because of his surgery as well his debilitating mental illnesses and me due to my severe and chronic disabilities. Believe me if either of us work we have—we just want to be out of this terrible shelter so badly. Every day is just a struggle to find the will not to kill ourselves, I apologize for the triggering statement but it’s true. We’re desperate. We just want to get out and start our lives. Six months ago we would have never imagined being living like this and we just want to live again because right now we are just bareknuckling it and going through the motions.
We have been notoriously underpaid by our benefits only received Cash Assistance of 30 dollars for us both every two weeks when we were entitled at least $90 dollars and more since upon enrollment we were in school. As of right now, our meagre cash assistance is FROZEN despite our filling out the required cash assistance rectification. Despite living a non-cooking facility meaning that our shelter provides NO FOOD of any kind and doesn’t offer any cooking equipment besides a single microwave. Food stamps can only pay for cold food—meaning we are meant to pay ingredients and cook at home but COOKING EQUIPMENT ( hotplates, toasters, rice cookers, instapots, etc ) is forbidden in our shelter. As a consolation, we are supposed to recieve restaurant dollars to buy hot food but haven’t received a single cent of it the duration we have had benefits despite showing information that our shelter is a non-cooking facility multiple times. We are both disabled and mentally ill and cooking is not an option so we ultimately end up settling for cheap fast food which has taken a terrible toll on our physical and mental health as well as quickly use our limited donation money. I am chronically sick as a result of our poor diet.
Due to the halt of donations we were forced to dip into our donation from our Gofundme which we wanted to keep as purely savings when we finally get to the point of seeing the housing specialist. Unfortunately, at this point we used all the donation money, all 2,400 to simply keep surviving since GoFundme took a percentage of the 2,500. We have made a new Gofundme aka this one you are viewing right now which includes once again the saving requirement set by the shelter as well as money necessary to keep us afloat till July/August.
Organisator
Elijah Lee
Organisator
New York, NY