- E
The picture above was taken in 2017 at a break stop on the last day of the Confront White Supremacy March from Charlottesville, Va. to Washington, DC. I still remember the chants, "Black Lives Matter, Trans Lives Matter, DACAs do matter."
Updated Nov 27:
I'm a future lawyer and was recently unhoused.
While struggling with sleepless nights at a congregate homeless shelter, in a noisy and unsafe environment that people who have never stayed there cannot imagine, I applied for scholarships from my laptop. I won four scholarships that fully cover this semester's tuition. I did pay about $4,000 for this semester (much of the room and board charges) at Georgetown University.
The next semester will be virtual as well. So I need to be housed continuously until the end of next semester. I will get to apply to
Georgetown law school the next semester as an Early Assurance Program participant. So access to stable housing, reliable wifi and excellent grades are more important than ever for me! I also need to study to take the LSAT, law school admission exam, within a year from now. I hope to apply to the 15 best U.S. law schools (Georgetown ranks 14th as of now). Three years of law school will cost about $190,000 on average, not including housing, health insurance and transportation costs.
Change: It Starts with One
I raise my voice, not for myself, but for others who cannot because they've been oppressed into silence and submission.
To give you some background info, in 2018, (Read in-depth newspaper article at the link) a social services org and their partner church denied me housing available for unhoused job seekers like myself (discrimination lawsuit was filed on Oct 16). This strengthens my drive as a future civil rights lawyer determined to go after bigots (and hypocrites who back padel) who violate DC Human Rights Act. The DCHRA protects LGBTQ+ people in housing, employment and public places, etc. Unfortunately, laws don't change some people's hearts. Too bad, these people don't realize how much I love going to courts!
I have been to different kinds of courts so many times (eg. to fight the legal system to get U.S citizenship). For this housing discrimination lawsuit, I have kept at least three threads of email exchanges between me with my cisgender caseworker at Friendship Place, whose job functions included communicating with the church for the placement of clients in housing conducive to securing gainful employment.
From the congregate shelter where I had remained after being denied a private room usually open to those (myself included) referred by Friendship Place, I spent two hours riding three buses to get to the worksites of on-call temp jobs I was doing and three hours on the way back to the shelter in DC traffic. After what I endured, including being demeaned, humiliated and dehumanized, I'm going to fight for justice that I shouldn't have to fight for in the first place.
Watch the TV segment on this lawsuit.
See more of my quotes in another news story.
A part-time summer job with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association in 2017 was the last gainful employment I had in recent years. Photo courtesy of WABA.
BACKGROUND Updated Jul 31:
This fundraiser was started while I was battling COVID-19 in April. Prior to getting sick from it, I had just lost my only source of income on March 16, when Washington, DC shut down non-essential businesses and travels. I had been doing gigs and odd jobs for survival since my last gainful employment ended in 2017, the year I began living publicly as my authentic self. I got COVID while staying at a homeless shelter with no social distancing and masks made available to staff members only. I had stayed at the shelter for more than two years because, in 2018, I was denied housing for working individuals by one of the social services organizations in DC and its partnering church, on the basis of a trait protected by the DC Human Rights Act of 1977.
I won my fight with COVID just to be left with more fights and hurdles getting in my way. After my quarantine, having no place to go, I ended up back in the shelter. During the same week I returned to the shelter, I got accepted to Georgetown University! Unfortunately, the classes will be virtual for the fall.
The shelter is not the type of environment for one to be pursuing a degree program via a laptop or Zoom calls. I'd like to further emphasize the reality of hardships that could present if I were to participate in virtual learning and had no place beside the shelter to stay because of my inability to pay rent. Here's what life's like for me, having to stay at the shelter:
1) I live in a communal space where my bed or bedsheet are not guaranteed every night if I do not check in by a certain hour.
2) This shelter where I reside now, under unfortunate circumstances, has safety and security concerns with shelter residents from all walks of life (many with a history of violence, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and other overt prejudices against people who are not heterosexual cisgender men. Security guards often sleep on the job.
3) Internet access at the shelter is limited and inconsistent. I have had Zoom calls over wifi with my therapist disrupted several times.
4) Shelter residents and staff members use their outside voices, and by that they let others know they've been in jail or prison. I often feel as if they're yelling into my ears while in fact they're talking to each other. These macho men love to get into fistfights as well. Multiple personal electronic devices broadcast simultaneously without the owners' use of headsets.
5) I'm a light sleeper so I get woken up a few times a night by snorers and those who set the alarms that wake up everyone but themselves. They can sleep all day as they have no determination to get anything accomplished. I have things I need to get done daily.
6) I have dietary restrictions due to physical and neurological conditions, and the shelter cannot accommodate my needs.
7) I do not have access to a refrigerator to store fresh vegetables and fruits. Sometimes, I spend all my SNAP Food Stamps allowance before the end of the month.
8) At times, I get to-go meals from a soup kitchen that offers vegetarian options. It takes more than three hours to get to the soup kitchen in Northwest from the shelter in Northeast and back to the shelter. On more than one occasions, I was misgendered as a "woman." More recently, I got called a "fa---t" in front of the security guard, who did nothing or said nothing to resolve the situation. The soup kitchen wants me to let them know if I get called the homophobic slur one more time. Shouldn't they instead prevent this act of bigotry so that it doesn't keep happening to individuals who don't fit in the typical binary mold or disagree with the heterosexual normativity?
All that said, I’m an adult re-entry student who will be enrolled in the fall as a junior to continue my undergrad studies to graduate by 2022. I came to the United States in 2000 as an international student. Immigration, financial and family circumstances forced me to drop out after completing 97 credits and achieving a Dean's List status in 2005. I had worked in restaurants and food service to pay much of my educational expenses. Previously, I attended The Catholic University of America in 2018 and finished a semester with 3.53 without any accommodations for disabling conditions that made paying attention, processing sounds of words, listening, spelling and pronouncing certain words and staying engaged and focused during lectures very difficult.
At Georgetown, I will get to apply to the law school in the spring as an Early Assurance Program applicant. That's a trade-off for losing most of the credits I have earned at other institutions. I aspire to become a civil rights and immigration lawyer in the next five years, to continue advocating for marginalized populations.
I used my stimulus check to buy a laptop. Much of the unemployment benefit went into paying off my student account balance at CUA. The university mishandled my financial aid paperwork and delayed processing so I didn't get the federal grant and loan. They denied their part in me having to pay out of pocket for that semester. At Georgetown, I will be using a couple of outside scholarships that I've won for my volunteer activities contributing to the LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. The financial aid has been processed and the amount determined. There will still be a few thousand, for which I pay in installments or take a loan.
Although the university has assured on-campus housing to some students, including myself, who need a place to live to be able to participate in virtual learning, the determination of whether I will be charged for room and board has not been made. I will be required to purchase a meal plan. Only two suitcases are allowed on move-in date to ensure that all on-campus residents can move out of their rooms in a single trip on short notice, should there be an outbreak on campus or other COVID-related emergency situations. This possibility is far from ideal. Regardless, I would have to move out on November 21, three months from move-in date as the university shortened the length of students' stay on campus, although the official end of the semester is scheduled to be on Dec 18.
At the end of July, I stopped receiving the $600, the federal-government-subsidized bonus part of the unemployment benefit. I was a gig worker, and the DC unemployment benefit alone isn't enough for rent. I'm not prepared to be on the street during the semester in cold weather due to COVID nor do I intend to go to any shelter with no social distancing and high possibility of being verbally abused. I will not seek help from cisgender-serving social services organizations nor will I deal with housing case managers/ social workers who get job titles bigger than themselves only because they're cisgender, not because they have the skill or heart. They get the job for themselves but they don't get the job done for clients.
I'm fundraising for the worst scenario to find an alternative if I would have to pay for room and board at Georgetown and if I would have to move out during the semester and for housing during the break between semesters and beyond so that I can complete my long-due undergrad degree without any more disruption.
Even a small contribution will make a big difference in my life. Thank you for reading and your kindness! Please also share the fundraiser with individuals and organizations.
-----------------
READ FULL STORY FROM THE TIME I GOT COVID:
"Stay home and be safe." It's easier said than done. I don't have a home.
Even if you washed your hands 16 times (my average) on a given day, if you stayed in a homeless shelter with up to 180 people jampacked in a warehouse building, your chance of getting infected with Coronavirus would likely be higher than those at spacious residences. Until I was picked up by a medical transport vehicle on April 13, the shelter had not given out masks to residents. The staff members had been wearing medical masks for almost a month then.
I fell ill around April 11 with a fever, muscle aches, infrequent coughs and fatigue. I've been isolated and in quarantine since April 13.. I don't know where I go after the quarantine. If the test comes back negative, I could go back to the shelter but risk being infected. If I'm Covid-19 positive, then what?
[Updated 4/25/2020: I tested positive for Covid-19 on April 21. That gives me no immunity from another positive test result in the future, according to WHO. I can't say what hasn't killed me will make me stronger.]
How did I get to this point as a working individual?
In the District of Columbia, 21 traits, way broader than one's race, national origin or disability, are protected from discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare and public places etc. Well, laws don't change hearts. After being denied stable employment by many DC employers, I became homeless in March 2018.
I immediately sought help for housing from a homeless social service provider. The organization's partnering church denied me housing based on a protected trait in the District. Instead of moving into a group house operated by the church, I had remained in a shelter for the past two years, deprived of quality sleep, privacy, personal space, physical health, emotional wellbeing and some other basic qualities of life.
During this time, I did 1099 contract jobs, freelance work and temporary gigs etc. I earned just enough for self storage fees and transportation. One of these odd jobs included working outdoors in cold mornings to assist bicycle commuters lock their bikes to a new beta secure locking station placed in DC by a company based in Europe.
I was excited about warmer weather arriving in the second week of March. However, the company had had its operations impacted by Coronavirus in Europe and informed me on March 16 suspension of in-person activities that would have put me at risk of being contracted with Covid-19.
Under CARES Act, I qualify to receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance that includes additional $600/wk from the federal government. I applied in late March, and the DC government has since announced that it's working on updating its antiqued unemployment benefit site. Two of my email inquiries on my benefit application status came back with indefinite answers on the timeline of processing by the DC Department of Employment Services.
Having filed 2018 and 2019 income taxes, using a free filing software and direct deposit for refunds, I will receive my stimulus payment late. The IRS website says the agency does not have my bank information. When I typed incorrect figures from a copy of my 2018 return to enter payment information, the figures were rejected as inconsistent with what's on file. Without my direct deposit information, the IRS will mail me the stimulus payment. Where I receive mail _also the address on my last two years' returns_ is at a soup kitchen that decided to close during the pandemic.
I will not see the stimulus check for a while. Whether my unemployment payment claim will be processed in a timely manner is a big gamble.
Without your help, contributing to this fundraiser and sharing this campaign page with someone, there's no way I can stay safe and healthy at the end of my quarantine. The food I'm being provided at the shelter and in quarantine lack essential nutrients for optimizing my immune response to illnesses.
Your contribution will be used toward paying for a living arrangement for a short time until the curve of this pandemic is somewhat flattened. Past the quarantine, I will be able to go to outdoor farmers markets for produce and pick up food from a few food distribution sites where I can get wholesome meals. Beyond restoring my health and staying safe from Covid-19, any funds in excess of costs of urgent housing need, groceries, vitamins and supplements will be put toward my other immediate needs for sustaining life.
To avoid using crowded public transportation and to get exercise, I ride a bike to get groceries or pick up food pantry meals. Currently, my bike, along with most of my belongings, is in a storage unit. My storage bill for March is past due for 30 days. Now, the storage fee for April is due as well as any late fees. After recovering from what I believe is exposure to Coronavirus, I'd like to get in shape by biking again throughout the summer. Biking, among exercise activities, is one of the most beneficial workouts for the mind, enhancing focus and clarity, reducing anxiety and stress and bringing inner peace and happiness.
I still have vivid memories of how I spent the summer four years ago on a bicycle tour across ten states. Eating wholesome plant foods, I rode more than 4,000 miles. The leg cramps and muscle aches from high daily mileages of 118 and 89 were small prices to pay for such once-in-a-lifetime adventure full of fun. The body aches I feel now resulting from exposure to Coronavirus in unsafe living conditions are in vain.
There was no need for pain medication during my bike tour. I was eating anti-inflammatory foods from plant sources. I also survived camping out in the Teton National Park at 21 degrees F. My water bottles froze. During homelessness, I have eaten the most refined carbohydrates, added sugar and other inflammatory foods than ever before in my life. I have caught colds a few times too many from temperatures just below 50 degrees F.
When food is right, medicine is no need. When food is wrong, medicine is ineffective. I'm living proof of food as medicine. An apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My mother was a nurse for 30+ years and preferred to seek alternative treatments for herself, not allowing intervention of Western medicine for minor health issues. She is living, in her late 70's and unaffected by Coronavirus.
During the cycling adventure, I started writing a cookbook on mindful eating for optimizing physical fitness. For many years as a professional chef, I developed recipes, intending to share them with my readers, from home cooks to athletes. I had volunteered to cook organic vegan meals for homeless individuals. As circumstances led to my own homelessness, I struggled at times to find nourishing food to eat, let alone writing recipes for healthy cooking. Psychological despair also contributed to this unfinished project.
Housing discrimination and suffering from such serious injustice cannot be undone. To address psychological damage and overall wellbeing, I have a compassionate therapist who's helping me understand my own feelings and view of the world around me. To continue therapy via Telehealth, I need to continue paying for my cellphone. I don't own a laptop or tablet.
The money you give to this campaign is a gift that keeps on giving. It's emergency funding for my urgent safety and health needs. My quarantine will pass. This Covid-19 Pandemic will pass us eventually. Healthy me in a safer living condition can focus and see this cookbook to its completion. Most of us will continue to cook more often at home after the pandemic anyway.
As long as I'm alive and well, I'll fight for justice. Those who discriminated against me and contributed to my homelessness will pay eventually. I will get housing that was rightfully mine in the first place. Furthermore, I aspire to become a civil rights lawyer in the next five years. No one should have to experience what I have endured.
In working toward this long-term goal, I've secured a couple of scholarship funds to be used in the upcoming semester of my undergraduate degree completion program. I hope to not let anything, finances or other barriers, get in my way. The money you give to this campaign is not just a gesture, it's an encouragement for me to move forward during an extremely crucial and difficult time.
Thank you for caring!
Updated Nov 27:
I'm a future lawyer and was recently unhoused.
While struggling with sleepless nights at a congregate homeless shelter, in a noisy and unsafe environment that people who have never stayed there cannot imagine, I applied for scholarships from my laptop. I won four scholarships that fully cover this semester's tuition. I did pay about $4,000 for this semester (much of the room and board charges) at Georgetown University.
The next semester will be virtual as well. So I need to be housed continuously until the end of next semester. I will get to apply to
Georgetown law school the next semester as an Early Assurance Program participant. So access to stable housing, reliable wifi and excellent grades are more important than ever for me! I also need to study to take the LSAT, law school admission exam, within a year from now. I hope to apply to the 15 best U.S. law schools (Georgetown ranks 14th as of now). Three years of law school will cost about $190,000 on average, not including housing, health insurance and transportation costs.
Change: It Starts with One
I raise my voice, not for myself, but for others who cannot because they've been oppressed into silence and submission.
To give you some background info, in 2018, (Read in-depth newspaper article at the link) a social services org and their partner church denied me housing available for unhoused job seekers like myself (discrimination lawsuit was filed on Oct 16). This strengthens my drive as a future civil rights lawyer determined to go after bigots (and hypocrites who back padel) who violate DC Human Rights Act. The DCHRA protects LGBTQ+ people in housing, employment and public places, etc. Unfortunately, laws don't change some people's hearts. Too bad, these people don't realize how much I love going to courts!
I have been to different kinds of courts so many times (eg. to fight the legal system to get U.S citizenship). For this housing discrimination lawsuit, I have kept at least three threads of email exchanges between me with my cisgender caseworker at Friendship Place, whose job functions included communicating with the church for the placement of clients in housing conducive to securing gainful employment.
From the congregate shelter where I had remained after being denied a private room usually open to those (myself included) referred by Friendship Place, I spent two hours riding three buses to get to the worksites of on-call temp jobs I was doing and three hours on the way back to the shelter in DC traffic. After what I endured, including being demeaned, humiliated and dehumanized, I'm going to fight for justice that I shouldn't have to fight for in the first place.
Watch the TV segment on this lawsuit.
See more of my quotes in another news story.
A part-time summer job with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association in 2017 was the last gainful employment I had in recent years. Photo courtesy of WABA. BACKGROUND Updated Jul 31:
This fundraiser was started while I was battling COVID-19 in April. Prior to getting sick from it, I had just lost my only source of income on March 16, when Washington, DC shut down non-essential businesses and travels. I had been doing gigs and odd jobs for survival since my last gainful employment ended in 2017, the year I began living publicly as my authentic self. I got COVID while staying at a homeless shelter with no social distancing and masks made available to staff members only. I had stayed at the shelter for more than two years because, in 2018, I was denied housing for working individuals by one of the social services organizations in DC and its partnering church, on the basis of a trait protected by the DC Human Rights Act of 1977.
I won my fight with COVID just to be left with more fights and hurdles getting in my way. After my quarantine, having no place to go, I ended up back in the shelter. During the same week I returned to the shelter, I got accepted to Georgetown University! Unfortunately, the classes will be virtual for the fall.
The shelter is not the type of environment for one to be pursuing a degree program via a laptop or Zoom calls. I'd like to further emphasize the reality of hardships that could present if I were to participate in virtual learning and had no place beside the shelter to stay because of my inability to pay rent. Here's what life's like for me, having to stay at the shelter:
1) I live in a communal space where my bed or bedsheet are not guaranteed every night if I do not check in by a certain hour.
2) This shelter where I reside now, under unfortunate circumstances, has safety and security concerns with shelter residents from all walks of life (many with a history of violence, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and other overt prejudices against people who are not heterosexual cisgender men. Security guards often sleep on the job.
3) Internet access at the shelter is limited and inconsistent. I have had Zoom calls over wifi with my therapist disrupted several times.
4) Shelter residents and staff members use their outside voices, and by that they let others know they've been in jail or prison. I often feel as if they're yelling into my ears while in fact they're talking to each other. These macho men love to get into fistfights as well. Multiple personal electronic devices broadcast simultaneously without the owners' use of headsets.
5) I'm a light sleeper so I get woken up a few times a night by snorers and those who set the alarms that wake up everyone but themselves. They can sleep all day as they have no determination to get anything accomplished. I have things I need to get done daily.
6) I have dietary restrictions due to physical and neurological conditions, and the shelter cannot accommodate my needs.
7) I do not have access to a refrigerator to store fresh vegetables and fruits. Sometimes, I spend all my SNAP Food Stamps allowance before the end of the month.
8) At times, I get to-go meals from a soup kitchen that offers vegetarian options. It takes more than three hours to get to the soup kitchen in Northwest from the shelter in Northeast and back to the shelter. On more than one occasions, I was misgendered as a "woman." More recently, I got called a "fa---t" in front of the security guard, who did nothing or said nothing to resolve the situation. The soup kitchen wants me to let them know if I get called the homophobic slur one more time. Shouldn't they instead prevent this act of bigotry so that it doesn't keep happening to individuals who don't fit in the typical binary mold or disagree with the heterosexual normativity?
All that said, I’m an adult re-entry student who will be enrolled in the fall as a junior to continue my undergrad studies to graduate by 2022. I came to the United States in 2000 as an international student. Immigration, financial and family circumstances forced me to drop out after completing 97 credits and achieving a Dean's List status in 2005. I had worked in restaurants and food service to pay much of my educational expenses. Previously, I attended The Catholic University of America in 2018 and finished a semester with 3.53 without any accommodations for disabling conditions that made paying attention, processing sounds of words, listening, spelling and pronouncing certain words and staying engaged and focused during lectures very difficult.
At Georgetown, I will get to apply to the law school in the spring as an Early Assurance Program applicant. That's a trade-off for losing most of the credits I have earned at other institutions. I aspire to become a civil rights and immigration lawyer in the next five years, to continue advocating for marginalized populations.
I used my stimulus check to buy a laptop. Much of the unemployment benefit went into paying off my student account balance at CUA. The university mishandled my financial aid paperwork and delayed processing so I didn't get the federal grant and loan. They denied their part in me having to pay out of pocket for that semester. At Georgetown, I will be using a couple of outside scholarships that I've won for my volunteer activities contributing to the LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. The financial aid has been processed and the amount determined. There will still be a few thousand, for which I pay in installments or take a loan.
Although the university has assured on-campus housing to some students, including myself, who need a place to live to be able to participate in virtual learning, the determination of whether I will be charged for room and board has not been made. I will be required to purchase a meal plan. Only two suitcases are allowed on move-in date to ensure that all on-campus residents can move out of their rooms in a single trip on short notice, should there be an outbreak on campus or other COVID-related emergency situations. This possibility is far from ideal. Regardless, I would have to move out on November 21, three months from move-in date as the university shortened the length of students' stay on campus, although the official end of the semester is scheduled to be on Dec 18.
At the end of July, I stopped receiving the $600, the federal-government-subsidized bonus part of the unemployment benefit. I was a gig worker, and the DC unemployment benefit alone isn't enough for rent. I'm not prepared to be on the street during the semester in cold weather due to COVID nor do I intend to go to any shelter with no social distancing and high possibility of being verbally abused. I will not seek help from cisgender-serving social services organizations nor will I deal with housing case managers/ social workers who get job titles bigger than themselves only because they're cisgender, not because they have the skill or heart. They get the job for themselves but they don't get the job done for clients.
I'm fundraising for the worst scenario to find an alternative if I would have to pay for room and board at Georgetown and if I would have to move out during the semester and for housing during the break between semesters and beyond so that I can complete my long-due undergrad degree without any more disruption.
Even a small contribution will make a big difference in my life. Thank you for reading and your kindness! Please also share the fundraiser with individuals and organizations.
-----------------
READ FULL STORY FROM THE TIME I GOT COVID:
"Stay home and be safe." It's easier said than done. I don't have a home.
Even if you washed your hands 16 times (my average) on a given day, if you stayed in a homeless shelter with up to 180 people jampacked in a warehouse building, your chance of getting infected with Coronavirus would likely be higher than those at spacious residences. Until I was picked up by a medical transport vehicle on April 13, the shelter had not given out masks to residents. The staff members had been wearing medical masks for almost a month then.
I fell ill around April 11 with a fever, muscle aches, infrequent coughs and fatigue. I've been isolated and in quarantine since April 13.. I don't know where I go after the quarantine. If the test comes back negative, I could go back to the shelter but risk being infected. If I'm Covid-19 positive, then what?
[Updated 4/25/2020: I tested positive for Covid-19 on April 21. That gives me no immunity from another positive test result in the future, according to WHO. I can't say what hasn't killed me will make me stronger.]
How did I get to this point as a working individual?
In the District of Columbia, 21 traits, way broader than one's race, national origin or disability, are protected from discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare and public places etc. Well, laws don't change hearts. After being denied stable employment by many DC employers, I became homeless in March 2018.
I immediately sought help for housing from a homeless social service provider. The organization's partnering church denied me housing based on a protected trait in the District. Instead of moving into a group house operated by the church, I had remained in a shelter for the past two years, deprived of quality sleep, privacy, personal space, physical health, emotional wellbeing and some other basic qualities of life.
During this time, I did 1099 contract jobs, freelance work and temporary gigs etc. I earned just enough for self storage fees and transportation. One of these odd jobs included working outdoors in cold mornings to assist bicycle commuters lock their bikes to a new beta secure locking station placed in DC by a company based in Europe.
I was excited about warmer weather arriving in the second week of March. However, the company had had its operations impacted by Coronavirus in Europe and informed me on March 16 suspension of in-person activities that would have put me at risk of being contracted with Covid-19.
Under CARES Act, I qualify to receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance that includes additional $600/wk from the federal government. I applied in late March, and the DC government has since announced that it's working on updating its antiqued unemployment benefit site. Two of my email inquiries on my benefit application status came back with indefinite answers on the timeline of processing by the DC Department of Employment Services.
Having filed 2018 and 2019 income taxes, using a free filing software and direct deposit for refunds, I will receive my stimulus payment late. The IRS website says the agency does not have my bank information. When I typed incorrect figures from a copy of my 2018 return to enter payment information, the figures were rejected as inconsistent with what's on file. Without my direct deposit information, the IRS will mail me the stimulus payment. Where I receive mail _also the address on my last two years' returns_ is at a soup kitchen that decided to close during the pandemic.
I will not see the stimulus check for a while. Whether my unemployment payment claim will be processed in a timely manner is a big gamble.
Without your help, contributing to this fundraiser and sharing this campaign page with someone, there's no way I can stay safe and healthy at the end of my quarantine. The food I'm being provided at the shelter and in quarantine lack essential nutrients for optimizing my immune response to illnesses.
Your contribution will be used toward paying for a living arrangement for a short time until the curve of this pandemic is somewhat flattened. Past the quarantine, I will be able to go to outdoor farmers markets for produce and pick up food from a few food distribution sites where I can get wholesome meals. Beyond restoring my health and staying safe from Covid-19, any funds in excess of costs of urgent housing need, groceries, vitamins and supplements will be put toward my other immediate needs for sustaining life.
To avoid using crowded public transportation and to get exercise, I ride a bike to get groceries or pick up food pantry meals. Currently, my bike, along with most of my belongings, is in a storage unit. My storage bill for March is past due for 30 days. Now, the storage fee for April is due as well as any late fees. After recovering from what I believe is exposure to Coronavirus, I'd like to get in shape by biking again throughout the summer. Biking, among exercise activities, is one of the most beneficial workouts for the mind, enhancing focus and clarity, reducing anxiety and stress and bringing inner peace and happiness.
I still have vivid memories of how I spent the summer four years ago on a bicycle tour across ten states. Eating wholesome plant foods, I rode more than 4,000 miles. The leg cramps and muscle aches from high daily mileages of 118 and 89 were small prices to pay for such once-in-a-lifetime adventure full of fun. The body aches I feel now resulting from exposure to Coronavirus in unsafe living conditions are in vain.
There was no need for pain medication during my bike tour. I was eating anti-inflammatory foods from plant sources. I also survived camping out in the Teton National Park at 21 degrees F. My water bottles froze. During homelessness, I have eaten the most refined carbohydrates, added sugar and other inflammatory foods than ever before in my life. I have caught colds a few times too many from temperatures just below 50 degrees F.
When food is right, medicine is no need. When food is wrong, medicine is ineffective. I'm living proof of food as medicine. An apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My mother was a nurse for 30+ years and preferred to seek alternative treatments for herself, not allowing intervention of Western medicine for minor health issues. She is living, in her late 70's and unaffected by Coronavirus.
During the cycling adventure, I started writing a cookbook on mindful eating for optimizing physical fitness. For many years as a professional chef, I developed recipes, intending to share them with my readers, from home cooks to athletes. I had volunteered to cook organic vegan meals for homeless individuals. As circumstances led to my own homelessness, I struggled at times to find nourishing food to eat, let alone writing recipes for healthy cooking. Psychological despair also contributed to this unfinished project.
Housing discrimination and suffering from such serious injustice cannot be undone. To address psychological damage and overall wellbeing, I have a compassionate therapist who's helping me understand my own feelings and view of the world around me. To continue therapy via Telehealth, I need to continue paying for my cellphone. I don't own a laptop or tablet.
The money you give to this campaign is a gift that keeps on giving. It's emergency funding for my urgent safety and health needs. My quarantine will pass. This Covid-19 Pandemic will pass us eventually. Healthy me in a safer living condition can focus and see this cookbook to its completion. Most of us will continue to cook more often at home after the pandemic anyway.
As long as I'm alive and well, I'll fight for justice. Those who discriminated against me and contributed to my homelessness will pay eventually. I will get housing that was rightfully mine in the first place. Furthermore, I aspire to become a civil rights lawyer in the next five years. No one should have to experience what I have endured.
In working toward this long-term goal, I've secured a couple of scholarship funds to be used in the upcoming semester of my undergraduate degree completion program. I hope to not let anything, finances or other barriers, get in my way. The money you give to this campaign is not just a gesture, it's an encouragement for me to move forward during an extremely crucial and difficult time.
Thank you for caring!