Hi, my name is Terry Dudley and I’m hoping I can introduce you to who I am, my story, and see if I can get some help with my situation.

A little over two years ago, I was diagnosed with HIV while I was taking a long-acting injection to help prevent it, and it took a toll on me. I fell behind on my bills because I started to miss work. However, I overcame and found a job that offered me health insurance. Because of the new administration, I ended up losing that job due to a lot of grants not being renewed. This led me to being without a job for several months. However, I found a new job. During the time I was not working, I used my skills to talk on panels and get side gigs consulting on research to help sustain myself. However, I have definitely found myself in a place where I have fallen well behind on bills and trying to avoid facing an eviction. I’ve been playing catch-up with everything, but in between paying for school and also having to catch up on everything I missed when I wasn’t working, I haven’t been able to find myself in a place where I’ve been able to break even. A little over a month ago my ceiling started to leak and started to cave-in so even we’re trying to catch up wit the rent I still would eventually need to find a new place to live.

Currently, with my landlords, I would have to pay $5000 to stay in my apartment and so that they can make the repairs to the roof. I’m trying to raise this money by the end of February. If I’m not allowed to stay in my apartment, I will use this money so that I can find myself a new place and cover all my moving fees. I’ve been on my own since I was 18. I’ve been homeless before, and I’m just at a place in my life where I’m out of options and hoping that this can help. I know my diagnosis doesn’t define me, and I haven’t let it. I work in public health and I do prevention work around HIV. I tell my story to make sure people know how important it is to not only get screened for HIV but to make sure that they are using other forms of protection. I hope you all can help me or share my story. Thank you to everyone who can help and who does share my story.

Everything just kind of hit at once, and now the weight has become too large for me to carry alone.