Help Jory Replace Their Car, Totaled by Blizzard!

THE SHORT VERSION

Hi, I’m Jory! I am a non-binary transgender musician, DJ, and pet sitter extraordinaire. I’m raising money to help purchase a new car to replace my previous one, which was totaled by a county plow vehicle during the March 2023 blizzards here in the San Bernardino Mountains. Aside from my pet sitting gigs, I am presently unemployed and do not have stable housing at the moment. My prolonged lack of transportation, consistent housing, and adequate income is having a detrimental effect on my already strained mental health. Since I have spent the last 7 months seeking aid, have exhausted all other options, and cannot secure any government aid whatsoever, I am seeking help from my community in order to get back onto my feet again.

THE WHOLE STORY

The story begins in May of last year when I packed up my apartment in sunny Los Angeles and moved to Crestline, a cozy town in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 2 hours east of the city. Little did I know that my first winter here would be a momentous one…

In February and March, our community faced a national emergency as over 8 feet of snow piled onto our remote mountain town over the course of a week. Many folks were trapped without basic amenities such as food, electricity, or heat, and many more suffered property damage. Our local grocery store, Goodwins, collapsed under the weight of the snow.

Houses were literally exploding as a result of gas leaks from meters damaged by the snowfall.

The whole situation was a perfect storm. Not only were we trapped in a geographically isolated place with no way up or down the mountain; to make matters worse, most of the county’s plows were stuck down in San Bernardino after digging out our nearby freeway which had experienced an extremely rare and potentially very dangerous snowfall.

We were all in survival mode.

Every day we would suit up and go back outside for hours on end to dig back out the areas we had worked to reclaim from torrential snow the previous day. Without a doubt, it was the most intense winter weather I’ve ever seen, and this is coming from someone who grew up with lake effect snow in rural west Michigan and also lived in Chicago for 9 years!

As a newcomer to the mountain, I honestly wasn’t expecting the strength of the community response. I watched as friends and community members organized, helped dig out their neighbors, checked in on one another, delivered supplies, and offered their very homes as refuge to those who were displaced. While extremely challenging, this was also one of the most inspiring and humbling experiences I’ve ever had. It helped me to really see what is possible on the community level when people band together and reach out a helping hand to their neighbors.

I was extremely fortunate to have heat, power, and food throughout, but my poor car was not so lucky. Around 9 pm on the evening of March 2, after waiting almost a week since our cul-de-sac had last seen a snow plow, a front-end loader operated by a county employee finally dug its way through my neighborhood while I slept soundly, exhausted from shoveling. After a brief verbal altercation with my neighbor, the operator began piling snow on top of my car, striking my vehicle with his scoop and crushing the back of my car.

I awoke the next morning to a wall of heavy ice boulders atop my car that stretched over 8 feet tall in some places. It took my friend and I over a day to even locate my car in the berm, as we were engaged with more urgent shoveling for my elderly landlord. When we finally unearthed my car three days later, we found that it had sustained heavy structural damage where the front-end loader struck it. My rear driver’s side window and rear hatch window had shattered, filling my car with snow. The windshield was also crushed. In short, it was completely totaled. This was bad news, as I had been laid off from my job in the music industry only a month before and I depend on my car not only to help get me to and from my pet sitting gigs, but also just to simply survive in my remote mountain town.

Yes, I Tried That

I knew from the start that my insurance company wasn’t going to be able to help me, as I had minimum liability insurance on my car, foolishly believing that its relatively low value didn’t warrant paying a premium for full coverage. I consider that a very difficult lesson learned.

Naturally, my next step was to file a claim with the county. After waiting over two months, I finally heard back that in spite of all of the evidence I provided, my claim was denied. Apparently, the escalation of the emergency status from local to state and eventually to a national emergency let the county off the hook in terms of dealing with these kinds of small claims.

My next step was to try FEMA. Again I waited, and again I was denied. So I applied for a small business loan through the federal government in order to replace my vehicle. That was also denied on the basis of my not having enough income for repayment.

Eventually, I managed to get linked up with an extremely helpful and kind lawyer via a legal aid group out of the Bay Area who helped me to organize a FEMA appeal (shoutout to ACBA Legal Access!) He told me he was impressed by how organized I was and all of the documentation I was able to provide, and felt hopeful that the letter he helped me to draft would do the trick. I couldn’t help but agree, but alas, my appeal was once again denied. We concluded that my ability to receive federal aid was sadly out of reach, owing to prohibitively complex documentation that was no longer possible for me to obtain but was apparently required for my case to even be considered.

As such, I find myself out of options. And so I am asking for help in securing a new vehicle.

Since I wish to remain on the mountain and grow with the community I’ve had the joy of getting to know better over the last year-plus, I will need something somewhat rugged and reliable that will work well in my environment. After much research, I’ve concluded that a 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Touring will be the most affordable option that will cover all of my needs. A Crosstrek will be able to handle inclement weather on the mountain and can also still navigate a city easily, which is important to me as I am frequently in LA for pet sitting jobs. It being a hybrid is important to me for environmental reasons, and will help me in getting me from gig to gig throughout California and beyond more affordably.

As it stands, the situation is pretty dire. I’ve been unemployed since January, and my unemployment ran out in August. I moved out of my previous apartment in May and haven’t had permanent housing since. I have been relying on pet care and the kindness of my friends and family to help sustain me, and have been incredibly blessed and fortunate to have made it this far.

It is imperative that I am able to get into a new car as soon as possible so that I'm able to work more, have steady income, and secure housing once again. All of the proceeds raised will go directly toward buying a used 2014 Subaru Crosstrek. If by some miracle my goal is met and exceeded, the excess will be set aside for maintenance costs.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration!