Joe P

Help Keep Our Family Together — Survival & a Broken System Joseph, Amber & our three children — (eldest 5, middle 4 and littlest 2) A Note About Our Photos You may notice we aren't sharing photos of our children on this page, and we want to be upfront about why. Amber survived over a decade of severe family violence and abuse — beginning at just 5 years old and carried out by 4 family members and 2 partners who were married into the family — throughout her childhood and teenage years in NSW. Police were contacted repeatedly over the years by Amber, from when she was 10 years old, and nothing was done. We have always protected our children's identities because sharing identifiable photos publicly could put them at risk from those individuals. They were shown when very little in the nine news report although are older now and more identifiable. However, Joe and I are now being forced into a situation where we must share our own identities and tell our story publicly in order to keep our family together. We hope you understand — while we're willing to put ourselves out there to fight for our family's survival, our children's safety must come first. Who We Are We are Joe and Amber — a young family from regional Victoria, Australia, with three beautiful children: (5), (4), and little J (2). What began as a love story crossing continents has become one of the hardest fights of our lives. We are not asking for sympathy. We are asking for a chance to survive a chain of crises — many caused by government systems that have failed us at every turn — so that our family can stay together. How It All Started — After I helped Amber safely escape her abusive household in 2020, the two of us planned a short two-week trip to America so that my grandmother could meet our first baby before she passed away. What was meant to be a brief holiday turned into a nearly two-year ordeal. COVID-19 hit, Australia closed its borders, and we were stranded overseas — spending every dollar we had and all our saving's on hotel rooms just to survive. I lost my father to brain and lung cancer when I was 21, and I cut contact with my mother due to her lifelong abuse. This was one of the many reasons I could not sit back and watch as my future wife being abused by her family with no help. We finally returned to Australia in February 2022 with nothing — no savings and no belongings due to the airline - Fiji airways - losing every single piece of our luggage, including irreplaceable mementos from Amber's and my deceased family members. Fiji Airways refuses to help with this and refuses to compensate us for our things we have lost. We have submitted a case to VCAT but they have told us it will take 52 weeks to hear back and we still have heard nothing about our case against them. Placed in Dangerous Housing — Twice Upon returning to Australia, we were placed by a housing service (Launch Housing) into a property in City Edge Apartments in East Melbourne riddled with black mould. After complaints, we were moved — then Amber found a private rental which turned out to be a another severely mould-affected apartment at 12/44 Everard Street, Footscray. We did not know this before moving in. Amber became so ill from mould poisoning that she was bedridden for nearly 12 months. She was also pregnant with our third child, J, and developed severe Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). We had to have nine news come out to film a segment as the situation got so bad and Linage Property Management refused to help saying our landlord "could not afford to fix the issues". You can view the online news report here and the video at the bottom of the description: Click here to read During this time, Amber was working at a Hospital in Melbourne — our only source of income — but she was unlawfully fired in December 2022 while pregnant and ill. Amber and a no win no fee lawyer took the case to court, won, but the lawyer took almost all of the settlement money, leaving her with just $1,100. No Hospital Would Help — J Was Born on our Shed Floor where we are living now... Desperate to escape the toxic apartment before someone died, we found and moved into a shed in rural Victoria in October 2023 — the only option available during the rental crisis in Australia. Amber was heavily pregnant. We contacted Dhelkaya Health, Bendigo, and Ballarat hospitals for pregnancy care and were passed between them for weeks — none would commit to providing care. On 5th December 2023, Amber went into labour in the shed. With no hospital willing to help in time, J was born on the shed floor, and I delivered him. We have been living in this shed ever since — over two years nearly now — paying $1,600 a month in rent, plus $300 a month in gas canisters because there is no hot water connected. The bathroom is in an adjacent garage. No housing places in Victoria will help us due to the rental crisis and no one has private rentals available that we can move to. We have applied to 100s since arriving in 2022 and going through what we have been through. A Visa System That Has Worked Against Us I, Joe an American citizen who has been in Australia legally on visitor and bridging visas since 2022, always applying before expiry. The path to a permanent partner visa has been blocked at every stage — primarily by the $9,365 application fee, which is impossible to save for when neither I (prohibited from working by visa conditions) nor Amber can earn an income right now. Amber is going blind, ill, and caring for three children including two with disabilities while also homeschooling. Her NSW driver's license expired while we were stranded during COVID, and though we've recently found a VicRoads office that will let her renew it in Victoria, we still can't afford a car. In early 2024, an immigration officer advised me to briefly leave Australia and return to maintain lawful status. I followed this advice exactly, travelling to New Zealand in April 2024. I was then denied re-entry based on three completely false claims made in the refusal decision — including that I had "family in New Zealand" (I had never been to New Zealand in my life), and that I had "previously overstayed" a visa (every visa transition is fully documented and lawful). I was stranded in Auckland with no money, no support network, and no way home. Amber spent two days calling every government office she could reach, including the Prime Minister's office. A senior immigration officer eventually acknowledged the error and helped fix it. I returned but was then threatened at Melbourne Airport by a different officer for doing exactly what immigration told me to do. I now face a potential 3-year exclusion period and I am being forced to leave Australia by the March 11th, 2026. The only solution they have given us is the impossible task of paying $9,365 for the partner visa fee before that date otherwise I will be deported if I don't leave. Our Children Are Being Failed Too Both of our eldest children have global developmental delays. our oldest has had over $35,000 approved through the NDIS across multiple years — and has received zero services. Every attempt to spend that funding was blocked. In August 2025, just 26 days after receiving a letter saying her plan was "continued," we received another letter saying she was "leaving the NDIS" — claiming we had requested it. We did not. Our second eldest's NDIS applications have been submitted and "lost" repeatedly for over three years. He cannot speak properly. He has never received a single therapy session or support service. An early childhood nurse called him "horrible" because of his developmental delay. A complaint was made. Nothing happened. J, born on the shed floor, was double-vaccinated by a Dr in error in January 2026. All three children have been failed by the same systems that were supposed to protect them. Amber Is Going Blind in both eyes - In June 2022, Amber was diagnosed with Keratoconus — a degenerative eye condition. Surgery was scheduled and then missed because we had no money after the hospital lawsuit. She is now approximately 50% blind in her left eye. Without $4,000–5,000 in treatment, she will go blind in her right eye too. She cannot afford the treatment. Psychologists have refused to provide any sort of mental health treatment, telling her she has experienced "too much trauma" for them to treat. She has completed a Diploma and cert IV in English Teaching while living through all of this, so that she can homeschool our two eldest children — who must begin in March 2026 because the local school near us cannot meet their needs and there is only one school in our town. What We Are Asking For - We have contacted over 30 housing organisations, multiple legal services, every level of government, and countless support agencies. We have been given referral numbers that lead to more referral numbers. We are not people who give up easily — we have survived things most people will never face. But we have reached a point where we genuinely cannot move forward without help. Any funds raised will go directly toward: • The $9,365 partner visa application fee — the single most urgent need. Without it, I face deportation on march 11th 2026, and our family will be separated for 3 years. • Amber's eye treatment ($4,000–$5,000) — to stop her going completely blind. • Resolving the driver's license bureaucracy — so Amber can work as a nurse again and our family can access services. • Moving to proper housing — the shed is not suitable for three young children or us and we are wanting to move to any place that will accept us, even interstate. We have been told by people "it's not that bad" or "people have it worse" and we understand people are in worse situations than us right now but we still don't deserve the situation we have been put into or are in right now. Our situation is one that's as bad as it can be for us personally and we are trying our best to get through it. Every dollar goes directly to keeping this family together. If you can't donate, please share. It costs nothing and could change everything. We have attached photos with captions and tried to show as much information as we can, although, gofundme will only allow 6 pictures. If we could show more there would be plenty more to show. Thank you for reading our story. Thank you for caring about a family that has fought for almost 6 years just to stay together, stay alive, and stay in the country that Amber and our children call home. — Joe & Amber Partner visa price of $9,365 Nine news report TV segment - 12/44 Everard Street