Hi! My name is Ellie Schumann-Mraz, I'm a 37 year old trans woman living in Tucson, Arizona. A disaster recently happened in my life, but life before that has been a series of small disasters. On July 2nd 2024 there was a monsoon. It was very windy, with loud rain and hail. Suddenly there was a loud crashing noise, I thought that the house had been hit by lightning, but a moment later black water started to leak down the wall in my bedroom, followed by water pouring out of the overhead light fixture. In the kitchen there were several more leaks springing up. I couldn't count how many streams of water were coming down. Saturated with water, my ceiling tiles began to fall, showing that the loud noise I thought was lightning was actually part of my roof ripping off in the wind. The damage revealed issues with the wiring of my apartment, and repairs will take months. I am actively seeking new housing.

I live a meager lifestyle with my cat, Louise. I don't currently have transportation, and part of my hope is that this fundraiser might raise enough so that I could have transportation of my own. I'm self employed doing 1099 work, and I would rather have a normal job for income, as contracting had felt tenuous enough as it was, and dealing with the after effects of losing my home, I've also missed a lot of work.

My real passion, the thing that has brought me the most joy in my life is photography. You can view some of my work here and here. Since moving back to Tucson I've been lucky enough to find a community with a local women/trans/femme photo group. I started photography when I was 30, I went on walks around the University of Arizona campus & took photos on my iPhone that I posted to Instagram. I started to have some people following me as I dove head first into photography and in the span of about a year, I had my first show at a local gallery.

In May of 2023 I moved back to Tucson from Ohio where I was living in my exes home. We broke up in the wake of my coming out as trans in mid March of 2022. I moved to Tucson to help take care of my mother. She is and has been very sick, mentally and physically, since around 2008. Unfortunately, I was not helping to take care of her so much as taking on all of the responsibilities around the house. She was able to get around with a walker but she was extremely diminished mentally & physically. I moved without a new job lined up and expected that I would be able to find something part time, but it was quickly revealed that would not be the case. I was being paid $1,000 per month, plus room and was asked to split food cost and make a grocery budget with someone who could not take care of herself.

This is when I started contract work. I work from home on my laptop. It's fine, but not great, and has zero safety net. I had been working when I had the chance between ferrying my mother to her frequent appointments. Her conditions became worse & new ailments were discovered, I was able to dedicate less and less time to work as my bills got higher and higher. In October I told her guardian I wouldn't be able to take care of her anymore, and I moved out at the end of January. She has since been moved back to a locked assisted living facility where she's able to get the kind of care that she needs, and that a single person had no chance at providing.

In the past months, I've been living just me and the cat, exercising, trying to eat at home, pay off my debts and doing my best to start life over again. Like, before the most pressing reason to start my life over again, what happened on July 2nd.

Why the big ask? I've been doing a lot of starting over, and I want to try to get as much of a leg up as I can. I am looking for new housing, which obviously necessitates a large amount of unexpected money in application fees and eventual security deposits once I am able to secure housing. I did not have renters insurance and will need to pay to replace several things out of pocket, including my bed. I won't actually know the full extent of the damage until I'm able to move my items out of my old apartment, once I can secure new housing.

A portion of the total that I'm asking for is to pay for loans and to pay down my credit cards, as their monthly payments are eating a large portion of my monthly income. I also owe a total of 2,000 on loans for laser hair removal and almost 1,500 to the IRS for last years taxes. These financial commitments are last on my list of priorities, and any money that is donated will only go toward these totals once my other needs have been met. Being able to take care of even one of those expenses would be enormously helpful.

I'd like to be able to give a real go at selling my work. I have thousands of photos but no way to package and display that work for sale, which would be my dream. Since I also live in Tucson, having shade for the year round sun is super important. I have hopes that some amount of the funds that I raise can go toward the cost of being an artist. Whether that be call for entry fees, the cost of having my images printed for sale, or the cost of furnishing and equipping a booth with everything that I would need to be able to sell items.

Not having a car in the desert sucks, and I often find myself afraid to be out for very long on foot. Being transgender can feel like a really scary thing sometimes, and being out in the open feels very vulnerable. Part of the total I'm asking for is an estimate for a car and 6 months of insurance so that I can feel safer in the city, and safer doing the thing that I love. I don't take a lot of photographs anymore outside of the club and it really breaks my heart.

I know that I am asking for a lot, but I have decent experience with making a little go a long way. There are obviously priorities, like the items that were water damaged that will need to be replaced. I respect anyone who donates or shares this gofundme and I promise that I will use anything that you provide with absolute care.

TLDR; I need your help to get back on my feet after my apartment recently flooded. I also would like your help in pursuing an ultimate goal of being able to sustain myself with my art.