Keep a roof over Dorothea and her two daughters

This campaign was created by George Ardura and Leigh El-Hindi to raise funds for our friend Dorothea and her two daughters, one 13 years old and the other 5 years old. Dorothea and her family are functionally homeless. They have been staying at good Samaritans’ homes and living in motels and hotels in order to keep a roof over their heads and protect themselves from the dangers of living on the street. Currently, Dorothea and her two daughters are staying in a motel in Durham, North Carolina. They are in survival mode right now. With the help of a Peer Support Specialist, who is a social worker named Crystal working for Sunrise Clinicals, they have reached out to and applied to every women's shelter, homeless shelter, homeless charity, government program, and family charity in the region in pursuit of help. Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and a lack of sufficient funding, the region's programs have not been able to keep up with the demands of individuals and families like Dorothea's who are struggling to survive. The daily ritual of calling and applying to any organization that could potentially help, and spending all other hours walking the streets, even at night and well into the morning, to ask strangers for spare change in hopes of affording the $70 daily rate at the motel has dominated Dorothea and her daughters’ lives. Finding those $70 every night through whatever means possible has been the only way Dorothea and her family has been able to live safely.

There is good news though. Through Alliance Health's Independent Living Initiative (ILI), which helps homeless people enter into permanent housing, Dorothea and her family have the opportunity in early August to finally be able to move into permanent housing. The program will provide Dorothea with first and last month's rent on an apartment, with options for assistance with rent and utilities while living at the apartment. All that Dorothea has to do is provide the program with a letter of intent to sign a lease, meaning she has to apply to local housing and wait for a spot to open, at which point she will be able to access help from the program to move in. She has already raised the funds for application fees and has applied to multiple locations, and with the help of a Pastor at Yates Baptist Church, she has had assistance in affording these application fees. According to Dorothea's social worker and many of the places that Dorothea has applied to, an apartment is expected to open at the end of the month due to North Carolina's eviction memorandum ending. Once a location opens up, Dorothea will be able to enter into permanent housing and create true financial and emotional stability for her and her family.

Until a spot opens, Dorothea just needs to stay safely housed. This is where we can help. Currently, a stay of 5 days at her motel costs $300.80 under a long-stay discount. She has raised enough funds to stay at her motel until Monday, July 26 at 11:30 am at which point the motel would evict her. This means, therefore, that we must help her raise at least $600 so that she can keep her family housed until July 5th, at which point, some apartments may be open and ready for her family to move into. We decided to set the goal to $1,000 because the exact date of an apartment opening up is still in the air, and additional funds would provide Dorothea and her family with a few days of extra time to wait for an apartment to open up. If, God-willing, an apartment opens up on the 5th, which is the best-case scenario and also the most likely one, all extra funds will be used to sustain Dorothea and her family in their new home permanently.

Leigh and I spent a whole day with Dorothea and her family. We got to know her oldest daughter, who has a passion for technology and Anime. She, only being 13 years old, explained and showed to me how she has been learning how to design and code websites and has already built a couple of them. She is a smart and passionate young woman, who we believe with your support, will have a stable home life where she won’t have to worry about where she will be sleeping each night and can pursue her passion in technology.

We also got to know Dorothea’s youngest daughter, a fun and very energetic 5 year old who loves to make friends and is also very polite. She had a blast hanging out with Leigh and Leigh had a blast hanging out with her. She has the biggest smile, and the pure joy and love radiating out of her is contagious.

We also got to know Dorothea. Dorothea has had a difficult life but has persevered through it all for her daughters. Tragically, Dorothea lost her first baby daughter in a car crash in Richmond VA. After going through a tough separation in her marriage, she came down to Durham NC to take care of her parents as they experienced medical problems. Her parents got better but abandoned her, and with Dorothea’s financial resources already exhausted helping her parents, she was left to fend for herself and her two daughters alone. A pipe burst in her apartment shortly thereafter, and her landlord, who was a slumlord, refused to fix the problem. This led to her water bill climbing to nearly $1000 a month. She and her family were then evicted from this apartment as the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown began which only served to exacerbate her situation along with countless other Americans’.

Dorothea’s love for her daughters has kept her from giving up and knowing that they rely on her to provide for them has left her no option but to be strong. Nobody should have to go through this and Dorothea needs our help. The sleepless nights are adding up and the dependence on strangers’ good graces as resources run low is unpredictable. A way out of this tough time is within Dorothea and her family’s grasp, but only if we are able to help them stay safe in the meantime.

We hope that you are able to help us help Dorothea and her two daughters, so they can live securely again and finally live their lives without the constant stress of affording survival.

Any funds help. Any local advice to the Durham, NC area helps. Any spreading of Dorothea and her family’s story helps.

Your support helps more than you know. It could truly be life-changing for this struggling family.

Thank you.