Get Kai to Safety

UPDATE THREE: I have raised the goal to cover the $2200 moving costs I need to cover since I cannot move on my own. Everything else is pretty much settled at this point. Thank you.

UPDATE ONE: He has new roommate(s) lined up and would "prefer" that I be out by February 2023.

UPDATE TWO: If we can get to half my goal, I can secure a new apartment and be out of here by March 1, 2023. It'll be tight for groceries and hookup fees and such, but I can figure that out when we get there.

Hi, I'm Kai.

This has been really hard for me to accept, and I didn't know where else to turn.

I am raising funds to leave an emotionally and financially abusive situation. The funds here will cover first month's rent and damage deposit, and moving expenses to get me out of here and into my own place. Anything above this goal will help me to settle into a new home, and cover things like groceries while I wait for my student loan to clear for my next semester of university.

My story: I have been living with a person who I thought was my friend since 2016. In 2017 I lost my well-paying job. Since then, I have been unable to hold down steady work in food service or retail, losing my job several times as there 'are not enough hours available,' and being the newest individual on the team, first on the chopping block. I have not been able to return to food service due to airborne food allergies.

As of 2021, I enrolled in university, taking out a massive student loan to help pay my way in the apartment I am living in with the aforementioned roommate. Things have been steadily declining between my roommate and I, as his emotional and financial abuse has gotten much more prevalent and invasive. I am currently between semesters of school, and cannot find work, despite applying to everything I can find, I'm not getting calls back. I have had help several times with my resume and still nothing.

Now, about my roommate. He consistently demands more money than I have available, and has at this point, eaten what little money I had been able to save. We split rent and bills, and share groceries. For most of the year while I was in school, he did not buy groceries at all, but consumed the groceries I purchased. He often asks for things like gas money, or for me to pay for Netflix. Several times recently, the rent cheque has bounced and he has asked me for additional money to cover his bank fees. I never get this money back. Emotionally, he no longer treats me like a friend. I am not welcome to hang out in the living room, not welcome to watch TV. He has friends over all the time and often invites them for meals, expecting that I will have prepared enough food to feed the extra people, even though we are on a very tight food budget and I plan meals out in advance, without thought for feeding other people. He does not participate in chores, and gets actively angry when there is not a meal prepared when he gets home from work, regardless of what I was doing during the day (for example, if I was in a lecture or otherwise busy with school and have not prepared a meal, he starts a fight.) I chose to ignore the chores that he is supposed to do, such as cleaning the bathroom, and if I don't remind him constantly, these chores do not get done for weeks or months at a time. You can imagine what a bathroom that hasn't been cleaned for two months looks and smells like. If I don't prepare a meal on the nights that he says he will cook, I don't eat and he won't actively prepare a meal, often simply making himself a bowl of ramen at ten p.m., which is something that I cannot eat due to allergies. Whenever I confront him about this, he starts a fight, treating me like I do nothing around the house, and that all I do is play video games.

He behaves as if my university courses are not legitimate work because they have been at-home, correspondence. The apartment we are living in is not to code, and the upstairs neighbours infected us both with covid in December 2021. I have been suffering with health problems and long covid symptoms, including brain fog and fatigue. This has negatively impacted my ability to study, as his pattern of behaviour did not change to assist me when I was ill. Not only did he not help with any cooking or cleaning while I was ill, but he refused to care for himself, and demanded that he eat when I made soup and other meals for myself during covid. This continued after, as he did not get any symptoms of long covid. He did not assist me in any way after the infection, still expecting me to cook and clean while sluggish and slow, and this ultimately affected my studies, leaving me very little time to accomplish my coursework and ultimately causing me to fail several classes because I had no time to study for finals. My health continues to be subpar even now, and he has not changed his behaviour in any way.

I have not been able to leave because I cannot find steady work. My student loan does not cover living expenses in the city I currently reside. Rent in the apartment we are in has recently been upped by $200/month and there are no affordable apartments for someone living on a student loan alone. I am planning to use the money in this fundraiser to move to a more affordable city, return to university, and find work there. He will not be coming with me, and I will not be sharing this information with him once I am safely away. I don't have family that I can ask for help, so I'm turning to the internet.

Thank you so much for helping me.