Hi all-

My partner Micky and I have been facing a difficult and unexpected situation with our housing. After packing up our lives an hour away and moving (back) to New Haven at the end of this past February, our landlords have decided suddenly to sell our house. We went into signing our current lease with full transparency of our intentions to hopefully be in this apartment long term, and the landlords responded affirmatively to those intentions. However, after only seven months of us living here, they gave us very casual notice in mid October that they would be selling our house. When we asked for an early re-signing of our lease (which ends in January) to ensure any modicum of stability, they refused. Showings of our home began shortly after we got the news, and we have been in a state of chronic stress ever since.

For added context this will not only mark the second time we have had to move this year, but the third time we have had to move in the last two years. Last time we moved, we vowed to do whatever we could to try and make sure we wouldn’t have to do it again because it all but destroyed our wallets and psyches but alas, here we are! Yayyyy! This is also a gut-punch given the amount of very intentional work we did to turn this apartment into a place we could happily call home despite its pitfalls.

We have been lucky enough to happen upon and get accepted into a new apartment quickly, which is an enormous relief and honestly feels miraculous. However, I am currently experiencing an extreme drought in work as a freelancer and struggling to find anything more stable to supplement income in this deranged job market. After being in severe financial limbo and under tremendous stress to make ends meet sufficiently since the summer ended and I lost a couple of my more stable streams of income, the unexpected expenses of moving are yet another life-altering financial deficit that is being piled on to this absolute hall of fame stinker of a year.

It is with a strong degree of reticence that I make this fundraiser, given how many extremely worthy places there are to put your money right now and how many people are in truly desperate need during these tumultuous and violent times. However, we have cultivated a wonderful community of friends and peers over the years, and after some encouragement it’s from between a rock and a hard place that we are crawling out to ask that community for assistance. Several aspects of this unfortunate situation have turned out much more fortunately than they could have, and for that we genuinely thank our lucky stars. But the truth of the matter is that we can’t afford to not ask for help. With these funds, we are hoping to cover the cost of a UHAUL and gas, boxes and packing supplies, recoup lost wages for days my partner has to take off to pack and move, be able to literally eat while our lives are upside down between houses, and procure any essential items that we may need to replace in the move. Funds may also be used in part to contribute to the security deposit for the new apartment.

If- after making contributions to those people experiencing significantly more dire situations- you have anything to spare to help lighten the stress and financial load of this extremely inconvenient circumstance, we would have so much gratitude. If there are any overflow funds, they will be donated to our friend Mohaned Raed , with whom many of you are already familiar.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this, and we offer all of our love, gratitude, and solidarity to everyone struggling & surviving under the outrageous and inhumane pressures of capitalism.

With love,

Seven and Micky (and Tina and Crusher)