I am raising funds for my friend John. He is a wonderful cellist, a scholar, a speaker of many languages, a son and grandson of Japanese-American internees, a survivor of eviction and homelessness, and now trying to get back on his feet without credit or regular income or dependable transportation in the LA area.

Throughout all of this, John is gentle and grateful for what he has, and I would like to give him a break. Please help me to help him provide for himself, so that he doesn't end up back on the street this winter.

More detail...

For a long time John has struggled with severe health issues, and then also legal issues with landlords, and was evicted in October of 2023. He found someone who could take care of his lovely cello and sheet music collection, but not himself or his companion/service cat or his books or the rest of his things. With brief stints in motels, he was homeless for two years, which included two bitter winters. Several of you were kind enough to help him out at this point, but the innumerable impossible situations continued to pile up...

Many shelters don't take pets. He found one that did, but it had bedbugs. Eventually he had to give his beloved cat away. His things were stolen, including his birth certificate and Presidential Freedom Medal. He would leave messages with counselors, and then have his phone service cut off so that they could not contact him. He would make appointments with social services, and then miss them because the buses did not run that day. He would qualify for long-term hospital recovery, and then be put back on the street because there were no beds. The heat in summer and cold in winter took terrible tolls on his health.

Miraculously, he got himself into an apartment and a car last fall, and began to do some food delivery. However, most of the customers are on the military base nearby, which won't let him in without a "real" ID. And now, the car with the one-day-old new battery he put in has just been repossessed.

He is now in the midst of debt and deadline chaos. His storage unit of books and music is constantly threatened with auction. The car will soon be auctioned off. Without the ability to deliver food, he has no income, and also no way to get to hospital appointments or social worker appointments or community services or libraries or his own storage unit to check on it. His phone and internet are once again at risk, and his health continues to suffer severely.