hi,

my name is laith I am an artist/ writer-teacher-caretaker-yoga practitioner-dancer and still often i feel near hopeless and have difficultly finding the words, breath and courage to reach out. Introductions are hard by default. I am fundraising to pay back rent and to support my return to school. 

 I have lived in New York State for about six and a half years. It is the longest I have lived in one place since I was nine years old. I moved to the city after taking a medical leave from my final semester of my senior year of college. I moved here to gain some literal mobility; (living upstate is really hard without a car-- even with amazing friends) I needed a greater sense of independence to grow and heal, pursue HRT, greater access to proper mental health care in order to survive and ofcourse in search of community and a sense of belonging.

Over the past 2-3 years I have been fortunate enough to access most of these things and attempt to get closer to the mythic baseline. I have cultivated and fostered many of my most cherished relationships, through this process. Learning to love and be loved in return, which is a lifelong endeavour and practice. This new capacity has enabled me to come out and ask for help today in light and not out of shame. I have an intimate experience of adversity's hand at burnishing fortitude, hope ,and compassion. I feel a solemn gratitude for this life take all the voracious change. Logistically, however, I am faced with deep rooted obstacles that hinder me daily despite all constant efforts. I now, have accumulated an understanding of my urgent need to reach out to others to support me in facing reality. That is, in order to deal with the multitude of known barriers, both structural and deeply personal, I must first attempt to tend to a long standing lack of both literal and emotional security that serve as an unrelenting blockage.

In the Fall of 2021 I was accepted into intensive outpatient care (thank you Medicaid) and by January of 2022 through the auspice of a dear colleague, and educator of mine, managed to secure my first salaried job teaching at a primary school in Brooklyn. This position enlivened a new passion in me for working with children alongside the chance to nurture and attend to my own inner child. The school served as a monumental grounding for me providing community, mentorship, expansion, a field for creative expression, financial stability and the work everyday to share my love for learning and knowledge. After six months I was encouraged to apply for a role as lead that was a great honour, and equally weighted responsibility. Ultimately insufficient administrative structure, the strife of teaching in the post pandemic landscape, pressure and burn out led to an executive functioning breakdown that resulted in me losing my job this past June and soon after, stable housing in October. Losing a job is hard, losing your housing is hard, both successively is really too much. So it's been a tough year for me and it's been a really tough year for everybody. I really want to recognise that. Many people around me are also dealing with the stresses of being laid off and/or relocating alongside the general existential breakdown of today, many of the people dealing with a lot have been instrumental in getting me through the year and I am infinitely grateful to have such pillars of people as chosen family.

I have struggled gravely with my psyche and complex trauma for many years, there are multiple features to grapple with. These have made it very difficult for me to sustain myself or even maintain coherence and belonging in "formal" institutions like university and traditional workplaces despite strong efforts. It has made it difficult to maintain relationships with friends and family alike and ultimately it makes it very difficult to move through day to day life in addition to all the other axioms and intersections of blackness, being of a diaspora, neurodivergence, gender and sexuality while living in this settler colony known as "The United States." There are egregious abuses of power that run the political system we are subjected to live under.

So I am coming to you raising my white flag. I am surrendering to this beast of debt and seeking grace. The weight of financial precarity and trauma runs over my everyday life and at this point has alienated me from parts of myself or views of the future. I managed to stave off court threats from the landlords through negotiating a payment plan. They refused my initial offer, and said they could not accept anything less than $3000 a month (which I can not afford with my current part time employment and I am not in a position structurally or of health to take on much more than that aside from gigs and shows where I can find them). Panic was all there was. Threats were rising including a bill for December rent, despite moving out at the end of October. After months of waiting and rent continuing to accrue; the Department of Labour finally released my unemployment insurance. I immediately made my first payment of $3500. I have at this time an outstanding rental arrears of $6320. The last 2-3 months have been a long moving out process, riddled with incessant harassment aggravating the deep sense of anxiety in me to a point of paralysis. Not to mention this mounting on a balance of medical debt and student loans (that were on pause during my unemployment, but will come back into effect). I have not yet been paid by my new employer despite having worked at the centre for over a month now.

With this kind of debt I am unable to pay into it and afford additional rent at a new apartment. I have been very graciously housed and hosted by a myriad of friends in the interim since the beginning of November, but would really like to be in my own space soon and get my head above the water. Living out of a suitcase is exhausting. My hair is so dry and I can barely sleep. My SNAP application was denied by HRA and amidst all the logistics of meeting basic needs I have not been able to allot the time to wait at the HRA office (again) to try and appeal. I am asking for $9620 so that I can pay off my back rent, secure a sublet in the city for 2 months (approx. $1800) while I recalibrate, pay bills, eat and have a bit of safety net to breathe.

I am trying to take things one day at a time, stay busy, and in moments somehow free from overwhelm feel the sunlight and sustain my practices and relationships, but it is becoming wholly untenable. My window of tolerance is disproportionate to my years and while I am so grateful for life and endurance I am also really tired. I would like to finish school and maybe do more school because I do feel I've grown in my leave and have many fights left in me if I can make it through this nadir. New York City really does feel like home and I don't want to uproot all over again, not right now. I would like to share more of my work with you all. I want to keep showing up and problem solving together, stay with the trouble. I'd like to rest too. So I am asking you, please help if you can to help me however you can.

Thank you for reading all of this --

Blessings, in solidarity

<3

laith

Capital seems to be ruling over anthropos as the defining feature of this epoch. It's been a deep year of mourning for the lives lost to genocide, extraction, dispossession and all carceral and necropolitical violence. Amidst recession's inflation, medication shortages, virus and virality I've found myself with so little space to process and feel into reality, so forgive me if this feels winding, but in a way I've been shuddering to even attempt to make a request within the context of the world. It has felt easier up to this point to dissolve into the resonant and communal scream. Depending on paroxysm to do a kind of material thing it simply can not.