Help My Mom And I Save Our Home!

Short story:

My mom has always put me first…she raised me alone and made sure that I had everything that I needed, or wanted. Even when things were tough, she sacrificed her needs to make sure I was well cared for. I need help to do the same for her now.

We are a family of two disabled people - me and my mom. I have a rare neurological disorder called occipital neuralgia. Mom has long COVID. We were homeless for 21 months before we moved to our current home. Being homeless wiped out all of our funds, and our health suffered. Neither of us are able to work, so we are about seven months behind on rent, $17,500 total. I have set the goal to $20,000 to offset transaction fees. We received an eviction notice, and our rent relief case is pending. Rent relief would only cover four months, so we urgently need to raise at least three months of back rent, which is $7,500. I know money is tight for everyone right now, so I don’t expect we’ll meet the larger goal of $20,000. We just need to raise as much as we can so we can keep our home.

Long story:

My mom has always put me first…she raised me alone and made sure that I had everything that I needed, or wanted. Even when things were tough, she sacrificed her needs to make sure I was well cared for. I need help to do the same for her now.

My mother and I were infected with COVID during the first wave in 2020. Her job involved working closely with merchants traveling in from Asia. In the weeks after a series of international meetings, dozens of employees, including my mom, developed COVID-19. In the year that followed, her health declined rapidly. She needed emergency gallbladder removal surgery, she developed tachycardia, arrhythmia with premature atrial contractions, chronic fatigue, and her asthma worsened.

My mother and I became homeless in August 2021 after discovering our apartment had a massive black mold problem. I developed hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare immune system condition that develops from prolonged exposure to certain bacterias, molds, or chemicals. Essentially, my immune system began to attack itself when exposed to mold. The only remedy was for us to move out of our apartment immediately, even though that meant being homeless. We lost the majority of our belongings, forced to leave them behind so we didn’t bring any mold with us. By the time we needed to move, she was too sick to anything more than work and sleep. Six months after we left our apartment, she was fired because of her new disabilities.

We were homeless in a new state with no support from family or friends, beyond my friends online. We scraped by using her savings, her retirement fund, and by crowdfunding consistently for basic needs. Despite our breathing getting better away from the mold, our health continued to decline. I developed occipital neuralgia, which affects my mobility, my dexterity, and causes me daily migraines and constant pain. I need to get surgery for it soon. My mom is no longer able to work because she is so incredibly sick every day. She was officially diagnosed with long COVID this year, but diagnosis doesn’t mean treatment or support. It took her 21 months to find us a place to live, and we now have a beautiful, mold free apartment. She used the rest of her retirement fund to pay the deposit and six months of rent, but we’ve been unable to pay since November 2023.

We have done absolutely everything we can to get rent relief and benefits, but as anyone who’s applied knows, it is an incredibly slow process. My mom applied for rent relief back in November, and they finally accepted her application this week, in June 2024. Even if we get approved for rent relief, it will take some time and we will still need help paying for rent until we can figure out our next steps. I have applied for SSI, and my mom has applied for SSDI, but they estimated it’ll be a year before we hear back about approval. If we get evicted, we have nothing to help us. No savings, no family who can help, nobody nearby we can stay with. Most shelters don’t accept people with mobility aids, and I use a rollator. If we get evicted, we will be on the street.

We owe $17,500 in back rent. We urgently need to raise enough to pay for at least three months of rent, $7,500 total, to stave off eviction. Thank you in advance for reading our story, and for any help you can offer. Even reposting this can help immensely.