Pay bills after being stolen from by our roommate

Hi, we're Juniper and Olivia. We're two transfem sisters living in Portland, and we recently had a lot of money stolen from us by our roommate.

We've been staying with this roommate for about a year now (3 of us total living in the unit), and since our apartment's payment website doesn't have options for split payment, me and my sister have been sending our combined 2/3 of the rent to him over paypal, as he was on the lease originally and we moved in after the fact.

Everything had been going alright for most of the year, but about two months ago, two weeks after I had sent him the rent for the month of February ($1,100 for me and my sister's portion), I got a call from the apartment telling me that they were unable to get in contact with him as his phone was no longer in service, and that we had failed to pay rent for the month. I talked to him in person, and he assured me he was aware of the issue and that he had already resolved the matter with them, saying he had proof he'd paid.

About two weeks ago, I got another call from the apartment telling me that no, he had, in fact, not dealt with it, and that if we didn't get payment taken care of they'd have to give us a 30 day eviction notice. I spoke to him again in person, and he again assured me that he was working through it with his parent's assistance, and after asking the apartment to confirm, I once again took him at his word, and we sent this month's rent as well.

Yesterday I woke up to our apartment having no electricity, and it still hasn't come back. After calling the electric company, we found out he was already $500 overdue on the power bill, and we'd have to pay more than $900 to get it turned back on. This morning, I finally got the notice from the apartment.

He hasn't been home since the power went out, and I haven't been able to contact him at all, as he doesn't have a phone, and he isn't responding to any emails. We're assuming the worst right now.

One of June's friends was gracious enough to help us with the utilities bill before we found out about the rent, which is overdue about $3500. We've set the goal to $6000 to also help us with making the transition into a new living space, as well as lawyer fees to pursue legal action against him after this is all dealt with. For now, though, our priority is making sure we can pay the rent so it doesn't go on either of our records, which would make it incredibly difficult to find housing in the future, which we will be pursuing as soon as possible while all this is taken care of.

Thank you all so much in advance. Anything helps, including any traffic you might be able to give us for a boost in awareness.