Six Months of Homelessness is Enough - Please Help - John L

Hello,

My named is John Lisowski. Today's date is May 7, 2025, and I have been homeless for over six months.

Over these past six months, my life has been a struggle for survival. I have experienced periods of food insecurity and weight loss. I have slept outside on the ground many times. For the months of November, December, January, February and March, I did not sleep in a bed even one time. I slept in a basement, on a cot, on a floor mattress, a park bench or the woods. I lost a tooth and I have other teeth I'm losing as well. I have been facing threats of violence from a deranged family member who I have never been close with. There is a whole court process going on with him. I have so many bills coming in, but my money goes into my basic needs of survival. Also, I have faced recurring problems with hunger. I have a high metabolism; I am relatively tall and my natural build is muscular. The downside is that I require more food than the average person does. I experience rapid weight loss when I do not have the money to feed myself. My muscle mass goes away quickly and I experience constant day after day pain. I really do need the help. Below is a timeline of the events.

About me:

Ever since I was in High School, my dream has always been to be some kind of rock star. I always wanted to get a music project off the ground. What I really want in life is for my basic needs to be met. Perhaps I can work somewhere that does not conflict with my drive to create music. I make music from diverse genres such as punk rock, shoegaze, heavy metal, electronic dance music, ambient background music, scary movie soundtrack guitar music etc. I play guitar and bass and I sing. Throughout the years, I never really gave up on music, which is why I continued with it. In my time as a substitute teacher, it was always my guitar lessons that the school. I have other dreams, such as making movies, making sketch comedy shows and making long video essays for youtube. I also like teaching. One day, I'd like to have my own music school where I teach flamenco, Beethoven and heavy metal in the same curriculum. I can teach almost any subject.

Timeline of Events:

2023 - A severe abuse pattern develops at home. I went to the psych ward multiple times. I went hungry in the summer time because I was seasonally unemployed as a substitute school teacher. I could not afford food, but an abusive family member would sometimes steal my food. He screamed false medical advice in my face and he laughed at me for starving. I lost about 20 pounds in one months. In July, I weighed in at 154. As I write this, I have finally recovered to 177 pounds, which is my normal weight. The abuse situation at home took a hiatus because I would be mostly living in Wayne until the summer of 2024. During my time in Wayne, I regained my weight, but as I moved back home, I found myself once again unable to afford food while the domestic abuse escalated.

September and October, 2024 - I resolved a severe vine infestation and a removed a massive amount of flammable wood from the backyard in coordination with Clifton Public Works Department. My mother's ex husband was angry about me moving wood to the curb so he resorted to death threats, sexual assault threats and physical assault.

November and December, 2024 - I found a basement where I was allowed to sleep. Things were better but I was still going hungry. A dental problem became a crisis. During this time, I got serious about creating physical media to help get a business off the ground. I burned hundreds of CDs. Unfortunately, I was relying on blood plasma donations to afford my food money. My gums were becoming infected by a dying tooth, so I no longer qualified to donate blood plasma. As a result, I began starving again.

January, 2025 - Got assaulted in Clifton again, but this time it was not a family member. The police came and they were helpful, but I decided not to pursue charges. My Honda Civic, which was in good condition and under warranty, broke down at a Dunkin Donuts. I struggled to raise the cash to get it out of tow but I couldn't do it. My friends helped me seek a warming shelter in Paterson. I mostly lived in Paterson. I spent my time preparing for court and acquiring social services. I qualified for EBT. When I arrived at Eva's, I was the hungry guy in the room. I was the guy other homeless people would approach and ask "I'm not going to finish it, do you want this?" It was refreshing to be around people who took sympathy for my hunger. I was so skinny, I had a mental breakdown after looking in a mirror, but Eva's Shelter and many charitable people helped me put the weight back on.

February, 2025 - I secured a police escort and asked the towing company if I could pick up my court documents from the vehicle. I needed them for court and for filing for social services. Unfortunately, the towing company, A1 Towing, held true to its official companywide policy - "customers" cannot pick up any belongings from the vehicle under any circumstance. My car was loaded to the brim with my belongings because I was moving in fear for my life. Even though that restraining order was dismissed by a bad judge in Paterson, the documentation of it was needed for unemployment. Due to A1 Towing's official companywide policy of preventing their "customers" from picking up belongings from the vehicle, I was denied unemployment and I was denied general assistance. Being denied general assistance is a big deal because a GA is the first step in order to apply for TRA - housing. I surrendered my vehicle to get my court documents and other belongings back, but most of what was in the vehicle was discarded on the side of the road, including the majority of my clothes. Also, I was homeless at the time, so I could have frozen to death as a result of these policies. I lived in multiple warming shelters throughout this month though, so I only slept outside a few times in February.

March 2025 - The warming shelters I relied on to sleep in where beginning to close. I found myself sleeping outside more often. Essentially, there was no place to go unless it was particularly cold outside. I went on an emergency camping expedition to Pennsylvania so I could sleep in a tent for a while. I lived in the woods for a few nights and relied on EBT to feed myself. When I returned to New Jersey, I realized that neither camping outside nor sleeping outside in Clifton nor sleeping outside in Paterson were viable long term solutions. I sought help in the Hudson County area. I relied on the warming shelter in Kearny until March ended.

April, 2025 - I was once again sleeping outside on the ground. This time, it was sometimes in Paterson, sometimes in Hoboken, sometimes in Clifton and sometimes in Jersey City. I was all over the place sleeping wherever I could find it. April was a very important month because I found a temporary solution to my housing problem. I struggled with hunger in April, but it was a period of weight gain, so it was not as bad as the starvation I experienced in the summer of 2023 or the end of 2024.

May, 2025 - I had a tooth extracted. Back in October, I felt confident that the guilty defendant in my case would pay damages. My plan was to use that money for dental work. I had dental problems but not a crisis. Unfortunately, there was no jury in that case, so all the defendant needed to do was lie to a sympathetic judge to get away with his crimes. I will need one or two more extractions, but my worst tooth has been removed. Housing and food are not as difficult now, but I have all these medical bills piling up. I also received a mental evaluation. I have bipolar and an anxiety disorder related to post trauma. People often accuse me of making up my own life experiences, but I don't.

When people falsely claim I have mental health disorders that I do not have, what they are really saying is, "John is lying about being abused." As it turns out, I used to have either PTSD or a related mental illness. I used to experience flashbacks and nightmares that were so severe I might be immobilized or experience a seizure. That does not happen anymore. Instead, traumatic memories give me rushes of anxiety, anger or grief. In my opinion, that is a substantial improvement. I might have always had bipolar disorder, but there was something new added in adulthood to my mental health issues. My anxiety disorder is a result of past trauma. It makes me hopeful because it used to be a lot worse than an anxiety disorder. My mental health is well managed. I hate it when people make everything about mental health. They see me crying out in pain from hunger and they assume it's purely mental health. In reality, my present day conditions cause me pain and grief. That pain is alleviating because my circumstances are improving. I still have so much medical depth between emergency dentist visits and stays in the psych ward, that I will likely declare bankruptcy.

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How did I end up in this situation?

I did not become homeless as a result of reckless decisions or substance abuse issues. Before I became homeless, I was a substitute school teacher giving guitar lessons to bilingual Middle School kids while studying for my Praxis to become a full time teacher. I had been assisting my mother financially for ten years and I did not do anything to provoke the crimes I experienced in that home.

I was evicted from my home on October 29, 2024. At the time, I still employed as a substitute school teacher, but I was unable to return to work due to the domestic violence I was experiencing. The assaults were completely unprovoked, which put me in fear for my life. Had the assaults been responses to wrongdoing on my end, that would still be a crime, but it would have been a less dangerous situation if that were the case. I can improve bad behavior if I need to, but I did not do anything wrong to spark the physical assaults and terroristic threats I was experiencing in September and October.

The motive for the first assault was incoherent. The perpetrator is a family member of mine. He was angry at me for moving wood to the curb in coordination with the Clifton Public Works Department. I hauled a tremendous amount of vines, dry sticks, brush and multiple bulldozer loads of large tree limbs. The reason there was that much wood in the backyard was simple. A tremendous vine infestation was killing entire limbs of a massive tree. Once I was done removing the vines, the pile was about 20 feet in diameter and five feet high. That is an emergency vine infestation. The volume of tree materials that came down was enormous - the slightest electrical fire could have resulted in a massive house fire.

The abusive family member in question did not like the fact that I was moving the wood to the curb in coordination with DPW. He lied to City Hall about the severity of the hazard. He made many efforts to prevent me from removing the excess wood. When I would not back down to his bullying and intimidation about the firewood, he physically assaulted me and threatened homicide. He pushed me with both of his hands on my shoulders. He pushed very hard, but I held my ground and did not fall. He then said "I will murder you." That is a direct quote. In the following weeks, I tried questioning him about this assault, but he refused to own up for it. In order to feel safe, I needed this man to admit to having previously assaulting me.

When I questioned him, he would not deny the assault. He would simply remain silent and return to bullying and mocking when other topics came up. He always fell silent about the question of assault. However, on October 23, 2024, his response was different. Instead of grumbling silently when I questioned him about assaulting me, he flung me into a large dining room table which I got as a gift for my mom. At the time, my phone had been disabled to prevent me from calling 911, but I learned from a friend that 911 calls still go through even without phone service. I called the police and they arrived promptly 30 minutes after my call. My assailant lied to the police claiming I obstructed his path. The police examined the crime scene, saw through his lie and placed him in the back of a police car. The police assigned the charges of assault and terroristic threats to my assailant and strongly recommended that I place a restraining order against him.

Then, on October 31, 2024 at around noon time, my assailant committed perjury countless times. I kept track of at least 38 provable instances of perjury. He once again lied claiming that I obstructed his path - an outright lie. Both me and him were walking at the time in which he flung me into the dining room table. He even claimed the hallway was too narrow for us to both be walking side by side. His claim about the hallway was also a lie because he knows we were not shoulder to shoulder in the hallway. Obviously two people can walk through that hallway if one person is ahead of the other. It's perjury because he knows we were both walking in that hallway. He also committed perjury when he changed the story. After falsely claiming he flung me into a table after I obstructed his path, he then changed the story to a different lie. He said he walked upstairs and he "heard" me fall. So which one was it? Did I block his path or did I take a dramatic dive after the fact. The judge insisted that no evidence be presented. He found the defendant "Not Guilty" for the charges that Clifton Police placed against him. The judge then got rid of the restraining order which the police urged me to get. Afterwards, my assailant retaliated against me with a false harassment charge, cyber harassment and continued threats.

Unfortunately, my mother was directly complicit in the crimes of her ex husband. My phone service is linked to my mother's account. She shut off my service in October because she was under the impression that I was making up the crimes committed by her ex husband. I recently reviewed the police records which show that she lied to a 911 dispatcher claiming I have schizophrenia. I do not have schizophrenia and I have never been diagnosed with it. The outright falsehood she told the dispatcher is something she most likely believes. It seems her ex husband has manipulated her so that she turns a blind eye to his multiple physical assaults, his death threats and his threats of sexual assault. She gave this false information to the Clifton Police on October 15, 2024, the same day I called the police about her ex husband making a threat of sexual assault. He allowed me to record him saying the threat again, but he worded it in a way that could give him plausible deniability. What he said on recorded audio was deeply disturbing but he said something far worse before I recorded him. He said my abuser from college was coming over and the two of them were going to take turns killing me and sexually assaulting me. When I recorded him, he said something quite similar but he did not threaten murder this time. He said the two of them were going to "bring dead bodies" and do sexual things to them.

On July 19, 2023, I went to the Rutgers police about my own abuser who committed many crimes against me and others. I presented a 90 minute testimony to the RUPD, but this family member would not stop bullying and harassing me over text message. His level of delusion is so severe, he might not even believe I really went to the police. The man is unhinged and totally disconnected from reality. After ridiculing me for going to the police about my abuser, he began making threats related to him. From October to May, this man has frequently made threats claiming that my abuser from college is coming for me. When my mother's ex husband made such threats, I always worried, "what if they actually do know each other?" It was a serious concern. The way he bullied, harassed and intimidated me for going to the police about my abuser from college made me figure the two might be in contact. I am quite confident now that neither of these two men know each other and that these are empty terroristic threats.

Due to the climate of violence and danger I was living with every day, I had to take an extended break from my career as an educator and pursue retail. I always say, I can work a retail job while I am homeless, but I cannot work as a substitute teacher. The same principle applies to a domestic violence situation. How am I supposed to maintain order in a classroom if I am in fear of being assaulted when I return home? How am I supposed to teach guitar lessons to large classrooms of energetic Middle School students and then sleep under a bridge after? The simple answer is - I cannot. I can, however, work retail and other job during times of crisis, as I did at Spirit Halloween.

So here's how the eviction happened in 2024. Ken assaulted me on October 23. Two days later, on October 25, my mother and her ex husband filed for two things - my mother signed for an eviction slip against me while her ex husband filed for a false harassment charge against me. My mother's ex husband was presented a restraining order by the Clifton Police and taken out of the home. In order to have him move back in, my mother had to evict me. On October 28, they tried arranging a false intervention with my assailant's son. My half brother came over on the behest of his father, in a blatant violation of the terms of the restraining order. I tried explaining to my mother how my brother coming over was a violation of the terms of the restraining order, but she would not hear it. My mother feels it "disturbs the peace" when I simply bring to her attention crimes that I have experienced. My mother slipped me the eviction form, after the 3 day window had already elapsed. She changed the locks on me while I was at work. The grievance I violated was informing her that my assailant violated the terms of his restraining order. I have been homeless ever since.

Please help if you can. I do not have a normal family and I never did. My family is not a safety net, but a drowning net. I do not have a single family member I can turn to. All I have is friends and strangers who help me along the way. Please donate what you can. I want a permanent solution to my homelessness crisis. Six months is enough. I want to move on to my next phase in life and I can use all the support I can get.

Sincerely,

John Lisowski