Hi, my name is Jasmine, and I'm fundraising because a former roommate skipped out on six months of rent and left me with the bill.
I'm a disabled writer and student living in Ontario. Most of my income is Ontario Disability Support Payments, but I have about 12 good hours a week, so I am teaching online, doing bookkeeping for a small business, and working on my Business - Accounting degree at Algonquin College online via two courses a semester. Most of my hobbies are some form of nerdy, as I love Dungeons & Dragons, Minecraft, writing and reading science fiction and fantasy, and spreadsheets. The accounting degree will hopefully let my useful hours be applied to the spreadsheeting interest, and the teaching online is because of Dungeons & Dragons— I run social skills classes for teenagers in the form of D&D games!
With the housing crisis being as it is, I've needed to get together with roommates to make rent for most of my adult life, and last year this blew up on me pretty comprehensively.
In late May of 2024 I signed a lease with two roommates, with move in being June 1st. It quickly became clear that living with these people was not something I wanted to do long-term, and after a conflict that had the police being called, I gave the landlord my notice to move out at the end of August and started the process of looking for a new place. One of the other roommates, A, decided to leave if I was no longer there to moderate the conflicts, and the one remaining roommate, J, announced his intention to stay. However, when it came time for income verification for him to take over the lease, J stopped responding to messages.
I moved out midway through September (J had started stealing my food among other unpleasantness,) and A moved out at the end of the month. The beginning of October came, and J was in sole possession of the house (he said he would find other tenants), and he— stopped paying rent. With myself and A still on the lease.
J stopped responding to any attempts at contact, would not finish the process to let people come off the lease, and wouldn't pay rent. In early sprint of this year eviction proceedings took place, but in addition to J being evicted, the landlord is coming after the leaseholders for the six months of rent that J didn't pay, at $2,000 a month.
The last month's rent that I had pre-paid on moving into this place was applied to the debt, but that still leaves a debt of just about ten thousand dollars, and A has no income, J is AWOL, and I'm the only one with any income at all with my six hours of work a week. Legally, the landlord doesn't have to split the rent, they can go after every leaseholder until it's paid, and if someone doesn't pay them the full amount it goes to collections, where it will accrue interest and tank my credit score (which I use to get student loans and for a disaster credit card that is not really something I want to put 10k on).
I still have the legal recourse of going after J in small claims court, and I will be pursuing that, but the legal aid person I talked to said that even if I get a successful verdict, it can be months or years for this to be paid off, if at all.
I know that money is tight for everyone, and I don't want anyone to feel pressured to help me out. If all else fails I can put this on the credit card and pay it off over a decade. But my income is tight enough as it is, and if you have any extra money kicking around, I would really appreciate any help at all. If you are unable to donate through gofundme, I can also accept donations through Paypal at ! Any donated money will go directly against this debt!
Thank you for your time, and I hope your year is going smoother than mine has been!