Help Joch Make It
Donation protected
UPDATE: With my Long COVID ME/CFS deteriorating, I am no longer healthy enough to work on the house or manage living in it in its current state. I'm now raising emergency funds to stay in a motel and get the house to a safe, legally habitable state. Read more at fundchange.org/store or below for more background.
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Hi I'm Joch!
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Hi I'm Joch!
Since August I've been living mostly out of the cab of a van.
I'm asking for your help buying a house to put a permanent roof over my head, build a home, and a safe, life-saving mutual aid space for others like me - Black, Indigenous, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, trans or nonbinary, and houseless; because the one thing that's kept me going besides my puppy is refusing to give up on this dream of feeding and housing targets of eugenicism if I can just manage to do so for myself first.
I've paid the deposit on a Detroit Land Bank property from auction and had put together over half the funds for the total purchase price and closing costs, now scheduled for mid January. But I've postponed twice already trying to recover from a second bout of COVID (short this time thankfully), and it's been too cold to keep running the engine or staying in the house to save money even if I felt ok running my propane heater all night, so I'm down the cost of motels since Christmas Eve.
With these funds, I'll be able to buy and keep the house, cover much needed van repairs and warmer jacket, and another week at a motel to finish out the coldest weeks of winter before I get the 2nd floor situated as a solar & propane powered apartment for myself with materials I have already. I've taken and passed the required 60-hour pre-licensure course to become a MI Residential Builder, plus submitted for State Emergency Relief so once I own the house, I can get help with a new furnace, hot water heater, and the most critical repairs.
IF YOU HELP ME MAKE IT TILL MAY I'll be able to keep the house at closing and create a home for myself until I can submit a proposal to use my Tyng Scholarship from Williams College to turn my home and van into a permanent mutual aid service spaces!
I've paid the deposit on a Detroit Land Bank property from auction and had put together over half the funds for the total purchase price and closing costs, now scheduled for mid January. But I've postponed twice already trying to recover from a second bout of COVID (short this time thankfully), and it's been too cold to keep running the engine or staying in the house to save money even if I felt ok running my propane heater all night, so I'm down the cost of motels since Christmas Eve.
With these funds, I'll be able to buy and keep the house, cover much needed van repairs and warmer jacket, and another week at a motel to finish out the coldest weeks of winter before I get the 2nd floor situated as a solar & propane powered apartment for myself with materials I have already. I've taken and passed the required 60-hour pre-licensure course to become a MI Residential Builder, plus submitted for State Emergency Relief so once I own the house, I can get help with a new furnace, hot water heater, and the most critical repairs.
IF YOU HELP ME MAKE IT TILL MAY I'll be able to keep the house at closing and create a home for myself until I can submit a proposal to use my Tyng Scholarship from Williams College to turn my home and van into a permanent mutual aid service spaces!
With this house I intend to build not just a home - finally - but the foundation for fundamental change I’ve been dreaming and researching and journaling about for years - the 2nd floor will be for me, but the 1st floor will be for everybody; a mutual aid station and pilot for the kind of housing and growing community required for our collective survival, built for a world of post-viral mass disability, economic and climate collapse - accessible, restorative and self-sustaining:
- Free masks, through Project N95 and a small KN95 manufacturer in Charlotte I've been using, and rapid tests if I can find them
- Fully accessible shared kitchen plus the van to offer mutual aid and give existing groups like Eastside Mutual Aid , Food Not Class - Detroit & For the People - Mutual Aid free space indoors from cold and heat
- Garden and greenhouse in partnership with Keep Growing Detroit to offer free farmers market and space for existing groups like Hey Y’all Detroit
- Small library space with a printer, 2 monitors, 2 coin laundry systems, and room for a local queer massage therapist to set up once a week
- Supported long term by subscriptions for wealthy individuals and corporations truly committed to justice to make monthly purchases of life-saving necessities like Rolling Cabins or gifts to mutual aid groups like HeaterBloc; and for story selling sessions on how we came to have a eugenicist economy and society based on my research since college, work as an Investment Analyst and then as a consultant and speaker on racial equity investing.
On Monday, I have an interview for a housekeeping position at the place where I'm staying now cuz the graveyard shift I'd gotten on an assembly line triggered migraines that made it unsafe for me and everyone on the line. I'm on food stamps and Medicaid now so that's covered, and I've tried 4 to 5 gig apps but haven't gotten any shifts yet, so I'll also be trying for other part-time housekeeping and maintenance jobs, a couple of Craigslist delivery jobs, and donating plasma to pay for living and restoration expenses.
Brevity isn't my strong suit so there's more that I hope helps you understand me in the document linked below; just some of my story that I'll finish writing if I can just make it until May!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this far and sharing if you feel so inclined.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this far and sharing if you feel so inclined.
Organizer
Jochebed Bogunjoko
Organizer
Detroit, MI
