Unbeknownst to me on July 15, 2018, my life would completely change forever! That was the last day I worked at Kellogg School of Management and after nine years with a division restructuring, my position was eliminated along with about fifteen others in the department. After a four-month contract with Dyson working on their black Friday communications through December, my contract was not renewed and I was let go. There was no movement or interest in my skills for the next few weeks because of the holidays and then 2019 came around and with it brought the COVID-19 outbreak and I spent the last two years unemployed.

That was a really difficult time in my life then and the only money that was coming in was from the government really as I was collecting unemployment benefits. What that really meant was that I was unable to pay the monthly mortgage fees or even pay the monthly HOA assessments for that matter. So, I'm losing my condominium after eighteen years of living here. The mortgage company filed foreclosure on me since I wasn’t able to pay the mortgage for around two years. Plus, I was also unable to pay the monthly fees so the condo association basically evicted me because I owed them over $12,000.

So, I was forced to put the condo up for sale. It actually sold rather quickly; however, I am not making a red cent from the sale of the whole thing. After the lawyer divvied up all the funds to the organizations, I owed money to (like the mortgage company and the condo association) and then he deducted his fees and also the realtor fees and other things like title costs and other miscellaneous funds there is nothing left. So, therefore, I don’t know where I’m going next.

Because I have no money, am yet again unemployed and have a wretched credit score (because of things that happened to me while in Rhode Island, and again for a very short time when I first moved to Chicago) I am really not that desirable to landlords to be a tenant and rent a place. Because I’m witnessing this firsthand, I understand now how people can get themselves into situations where they are homeless and living in squalor in a matter of weeks!

I have to be out by this upcoming Friday — January 20th and it really concerns me as I don’t have any plans moving forward. I can’t rent any moving vehicles to take my possessions out of here and since I can’t rent an apartment, my things will have to go into storage which again means more money that I don’t have. It’s bad enough that I had to put my piano up for sale with no interest from anyone so now I have to abandon it as I don’t have money to move it, and I’m also selling my dining room furniture as that is more furniture I would need to move and put into storage.

So I’m asking for you to be like Anne Frank who once said; “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.” and help me, please.