Hello everyone! My name is Nicole Royster and I live with and help take care of my mom, Gloria Royster, who is a 76-year-old retired CNA, recovering from surgery due to complications of type 2 diabetes, and we really need your help.

My mom has been having neuropathy issues since February, where her valves that supply blood to her legs need to be unblocked, and this could only be done with surgery. While the first surgery was a success and saved her toes from amputation, it has wreaked havoc on our finances and ruined her credit. A few weeks ago, she underwent her second surgery to unblock another valve in her opposite leg, and we will find out if she will need a third surgery in two weeks.

This ordeal has already been emotionally and financially hard for us both to deal with, barely getting by. To make matters worse, we are short $825 on our rent for the month of September 2025 because of an overpayment error Social Security made of my mom’s benefits in 2023. SSA claims that they sent us a letter 2 months ago; however, not only have we never received this letter, no copy or information of such letter appears on our SSA online portals. Even though this was an error made by SSA with no fault of our own and we are trying to appeal the decision, they are still taking the $825 back. This $825 is a crucial part of our income to pay rent.

I am even lower income than my mom, and due to the fact that she needs around-the-clock care, I cannot get a regular 9-5 job. I can only do work from home, irregular hours, or gig work. When I say I have been doing everything I can to make money to cover this deficit, everything from selling personal items, surveys, extra work on Standing Room Only, webcaming (which I suck at), and going to every audition in town, it has been hard. Even though I am a actor, singer, writer and content creator on TikTok, I do not have enough followers to qualify for the Creators Fund, and the affiliate links I do have only have gotten me three sales in total.

Couple all this with trying to care for someone who has cared all their life for me, invested in me, and believed in me, and I STILL cannot give them the life they deserve? I feel like a complete and abject failure. We are all each other has, no other support system, and it has been hard to cope with each other because of it. I don’t want to be homeless again and I am scared and trying my hardest to get my life and my mom out of poverty but I feel like a burden every day. I hate asking for and needing help, but I am at my wits' end and I don’t know what to do anymore, but I cannot give up. We cannot give up.