Please help Emily, Dimitri, and daughters secure housing

Please help me help this young family secure shelter now. Their clock is ticking…

I met Emily, Dimitri, and their two young daughters Eliana and Nadia last summer, when I began providing speech therapy to Eliana, who is 2 and a half and not yet speaking. They have been struggling to make ends meet since before I’ve known them, and after the devastation Hurricane Helene brought to Western North Carolina and Asheville, they are finding themselves on the verge of homelessness and in need of immediate assistance.

This family was in a tough spot before the hurricane, due to several factors: Dimitri was in a serious car accident several years ago, breaking both hips, several ribs, and a few vertebrae, leaving him with chronic pain and an inability to do many jobs that require physical work. They were making money as delivery drivers, but this proved difficult due to an unreliable vehicle they couldn’t afford repairs on. Before Hurricane Helene Dimitri had begun working in music production and was finding some success, but the devastation from the storm abruptly caused that work to dry up. Emily had been working in a restaurant that suddenly closed and left her without a job.

The family had been living in Emily’s mother’s basement, which flooded in the hurricane. It is now unlivable, and they lost many belongings. They have no other family members they can stay with, and while they procured FEMA funds for hotel housing after the storm, that benefit just ran out, and they are now living night to night using their very limited savings that is left to stay at the hotel.

They have recently secured a rent-free RV through a local charity as temporary housing, but they need to secure a place to hook it up so they can have heat, power, and water. The cheapest place they have found to park and hook up the RV is $1000 a month - which is a lot more than they have. They are in the process of appealing to FEMA, as well as applying to many local charities for assistance, but these resources all take time to come through, if they come through, and right now they can’t wait.

Dimitri, Emily, Eliana, and Nadia do not have the benefit of family support; they need the help of generous friends and strangers.

Your donation will help with:

Please help if you can, with whatever amount you can - every dollar is helpful and needed. Thank you!