Help Us Stay Housed Through A Difficult Job Transition

My family is in need of short-term assistance. Making this fundraiser is a last resort, but we are hoping to receive some community support during a difficult time.

My husband lost his job unexpectedly in July. He had been at the position for just over 10 years. It was incredibly difficult. My husband was an excellent worker, beloved by all of his employees, and the loss of that job was unexpected, and completely turned our lives around as we were, at that point, already living paycheck to paycheck with no savings due to the enormous medical costs and emergency veterinary bills we were already drowning in.

On the bright side, he recently got a new job as of October/November and things are going well. His boss has even remarked that he thinks to himself daily that hiring my husband was one of the best decisions he’s ever made since my husband is so dedicated and skilled in his craft. But unfortunately, as he is just starting out from the bottom at a new company, he is still on training pay. Training pay is significantly less than what he will be making when he is at full pay, which will be around March. As it were at his previous job where he was making significantly more, we were already barely getting by, again having exhausted our savings due to various emergencies such as car repairs, veterinary bills, medical bills, surgeries, and replacing items from water damage that our renter's insurance wouldn’t cover. We also had to withdraw his entire 401(k) after his job loss trying to pay for those emergencies, healthcare needs, and the rent for the last two months before he found work. So, we have nothing. Not only that, but we are completely exhausted as it feels as though we have just been putting out fires for so long without any relief.

I am disabled. We are both neurodivergent. Both of us are in a state of clinical burnout. I am autistic with ADHD, as well as CPTSD for which I am currently receiving treatment. In addition to those challenges, I also live with chronic pain and a neurological condition that limits my ability to work. Despite the many challenges I face, I do work, although it is very part-time as that is all that I can manage. My husband also struggles with chronic pain. Despite this, he still works 40 hours a week at his new job and he also works part-time for DoorDash to try and make up some of the money that he is not making while he is earning less pay for his training period.

In addition to ourselves, we also have two rescue cats that are part of our family, one of which is a therapy pet for my PTSD, certified by my therapist.

To earn enough money to pay the rent between now and March when his earnings at his primary job will increase, he would have to work his normal 40 hours and in addition to that he would have to work 34 hours with DoorDash (calculated by averaging what he makes typically an hour doing that). This would put my husband working 74 hours a week. Not only is this not something he can do with his own chronic pain, it is not something he can do while he also takes care of me on my own bad days as he is my only caretaker. That, and DoorDash does not always have activity which he can work even when he wishes to; there are not always people ordering food when he’s not at his day job, so it is challenging for him to make the difference up. Still, he is working as many hours with DoorDash as he can possibly manage.

In addition to the significant (albeit temporary) reduction in income, when our health insurance changed as a result of the job loss, our costs actually went up. With my husband‘s previous insurance for example one of my daily medication‘s had a co-pay of $2.00 for a 30 day supply. This same medication now has a co-pay of $13.00. Another had an $8 copay and it is now $20 with our new insurance. My mental health appointments used to have a co-pay of only $10. My new co-pay is $25. Our prior specialist copay (such as to see my neurologist or gastroenterologist) was $35, now it is $50. So, as you can see, even though our income has gone down significantly, the cost of our healthcare and surviving has gone up as a result. The Insurance we have now is provided through his employer, not one we choose ourselves, so this was our option. It may not seem like that much money to some folks, but when the cost of your life gets higher after losing a significant amount of your income, it just feels like salt in the wound. This cost change will be easier to adjust to once his pay increase goes through, but in the meantime it is near impossible for us.

What we are asking for from our community is some help getting by between now and March.

We live in an 850 square-foot apartment and we pay $2,160 a month in rent, before utilities. The rent in our area is ridiculously high, we are trapped in a lease with 10 months left, and we cannot afford to move even if we weren’t. If we can just get some help, we should be able to manage paying the rent and everything else on our own starting in March, or possibly April as it will take some time to get back on track, but either way we can manage once that new pay comes through.

We are both working as many hours as we can, never going out, not spending a dime on non-essentials. It is so hard to ask for money and it is so hard to accept that we got here through no fault of our own because if there was something we could have prevented or something we could’ve done better we could fix it but it seems that there’s no way out without asking for help. We are doing all we can. We are living so frugally and we are working so much. It is frightening to think that we could be unhoused just after the holidays when all we need is a little bit more time to get squared away with his new job and catch up just a little bit.

If you read this, I thank you so much for your time, even if you can’t donate. I hope you consider donating if you are able. But if you are unable to donate, it would mean so much to me if you could just please share this fundraiser.

Thank you so much.