Due to a building fire, my dear friends have lost most of their possessions and are finding new places to live month-to-month.

I am raising $6K to cover the basic costs of setting up a new apartment including: security deposit, first months rent, a new mattress, and a few essentials.

These two friends are creative, funny, community-centered people who have been a rock for me in recent years. They work as freelancers and in the service industry, and have limited access to family support. I hope to give them the love and support they provide to many of us; you can read more of their story below.

Can you give $10, $100, or more (!) towards helping my friends find stable housing? Genuinely, all support helps. Please give what you can and know that we deeply appreciate you.

Read on for more on my friends and the fire:

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Last month, two dear friends of mine were hosting a routine Marx study group in their apartment when they got a call: “You need to leave your apartment, your building’s roof is on fire!” As they rushed down many flights of stairs, they joined droves of neighbors, banging on doors as they went because no alarm was going off in the 12-story building, with over 150 units. I live down the block and joined them outside in front of the building; we watched the thick plume of smoke and bright orange flames. Firefighters arrived and within minutes, the smoke turned from deep black to gray to white, as they extinguished the flames.

When residents were let back into the building an hour later, my friends found water—from the firefighters’ work and from the sprinklers on the floors above them—streaming down through the light fixtures, ceiling, and walls. I brought over supplies: mop and bucket, spare towels and rags, candles and flashlights. The elevator was out, and a kind neighbor helped me haul the cart upstairs. My friends moved furniture to the edges of rooms and placed bins, buckets, and pots underneath the biggest downpours. The walls were beginning to swell with pockets of liquid.

When the water finally slowed, my friends made arrangements to stay on a friend’s couch. Over the coming weeks, they stayed at friends’ places who were traveling or had a spare bedroom. They made frequent trips to the apartment to assess the damage, salvage what they could of their belongings, meet with the super about plans for repair, and eventually to let in the crews who would knock out their ceiling and replace it. They wore N95 masks each time, as the mold was already blooming and making them choke on the air. Their mattress and most of their clothes were beyond saving.

Since then, they have found a temporary sublet and are waiting to hear from the building management about the timeframe in which their apartment will be habitable again. They may someday receive rent credit or restitution for the damages, but this will come months or years down the line. For now, unexpected expenses accumulate, they need to purchase replacements for the items they lost, and they are paying (often higher) rent for the short-term sublets they can find. Beyond the monetary costs, there is uncertainty about the future—where they will live and when they will feel stable again.

Their home, which they moved into last year, had been a respite: their first time living together as a couple, a place they filled with plants and invited friends for dinners, film screenings, and chaotic attempts at homegrown Shabbat services. For each of us, precarity can arrive in a moment. I hope that from within our communities, we can crowdsource a small cushion of support for them, to ease one burden of the difficult months ahead.

Thank you for giving what you can, and please share this invitation with others.

With gratitude,

Cynthia