- B
Hi, Curtis here, with not-so-great news.
On February 23, an awful fire ripped through my apartment building in Harlem, NYC.
I was forced to evacuate with my dad, who was, and still is, struggling with his health after being in a very precarious heath situation throughout the past year.
We've been out of our apartment since. Though our unit and belongings were thankfully untouched, the severity of the fire lead city agencies to have the entire building vacated for repairs. Months later, we still have not been able to move back home.
The months of being displaced from our home have been difficult. Managing my dad's health has been a particular challenge, and overall the experience has been a huge mental, emotional, and logistal challenge. It has also been a very significant financial strain.
I'd been out of work prior to the fire, which I had savings to support. Being displaced meant those savings had to be redirected to our now much higher cost of living (at some points more than 3x our standard), and with needing to provide almost full-time care for my dad, finding new work hasn't been possible.
We have done everything we could to manage this all independently, particularly on the financial end. But the extended time away from home has drained through all of our savings, and I have had to take on significant debt as well.
Ultimately, temporary housing became too much of a drain, and we've found ourselves in a homeless shelter for the past month. We're still managing, but we're also still in a tight financial spot.
We're hoping to be back home soon, but we still don't have a clear idea of when this will happen.
I'm asking for financial support so we can regain some stability and be a few steps away from the edge as we continue to navigate this challenge. I don't expect my savings to be replenished or anything like that; I just want to make sure we can continue to cover basics like food and my dad's health care, and manage my current debt without it snowballing out of control.
I appreciate you reading through all of that.
Anything helps. Thank you.
re: the fire -
Organizer
