Rent Free Communal Housing

Ok, new year, new fundraiser. When I got out of prison, the slate was not wiped clean, because it never is. I applied for a million jobs and I tried to get in somewhere, but nobody wanted to hire me or rent to me.

The job part at least made some sense, my record was property crimes and I was mostly applying for retail jobs at places that had cash registers or stock rooms full of expensive merchandise.

On the other hand, landlords thinking there was some risk I was going to burglarize the other one bedroom apartments in the building did not make sense. We were teenagers with drug habits, we stole expensive things from places that were full of expensive things. We didn't steal old TVs or thrift store microwave ovens from our neighbors in working class neighborhoods. This is difficult to explain to prospective landlords though.

I slept in a tent under a train bridge for the first few years I was out. I did get a job taking care of a man with ALS. I liked him a lot, and ALS is terminal, so I took 64 and 72 hour weeks because my time with him was limited, and because it was warm at work.

With no rent to pay, I just saved. Eventually I bought this run down old animal hoarder's place for $22K. It was all I had and I knew it was a risk, the place needed a lot of work. Every piece of sheetrock - walls and ceilings - all of the flooring, even some of the subflooring needed to be replaced.

Once I got it to a point where it would pass inspection, I started taking people in. First it was mostly local people, some of whom had been out there in the street with me and just needed a chance to get on their feet, others were coming from abusive situations and needed somewhere to escape to. Starting in late 2019, I made the two bedrooms available to anyone who needed to get out of where they were, mostly queer people leaving unsafe states.

Very soon after I got it ready to pass inspection, I got a certified letter from the administrative body responsible for allocating funds for the Department of Corrections. They were suing me to try to force me to sell the place in order to pay them for my prison time. I fought it and managed to get a settlement where they would put a lien on the place. As long as I'm still alive and able to keep up with the local taxes, they will wait. Unfortunately, that also means that, when I'm late with taxes, the state puts pressure on the local tax collector to throw us out. They want their payment. This also makes it so that I can't ever sell the place, because they'll take all of it and claim I still owed them more.

The man I was taking care of died. I was out of work for a while. I briefly did some data processing stuff, spreadsheets for a Newark based optometrist. The work started to taper off until I ultimately wasn't getting any in 2022, and since the whole purpose of this place is to house people who can't afford housing, we started falling behind on the bills very quickly.

It is still a mutual aid project, rent-free housing for people who really need it. I need help to keep it going though, the taxes and electric are over 6 months delinquent. I'm actively looking for more work, but my vehicle has a bunch of things wrong with it and fixing it can't be a priority right now, so mostly I am applying for remote work. Unfortunately, for every remote job, there are 10 applicants, 8 or 9 of whom do not have felony records.

If you can afford to help, it would mean a lot. Even if you can't, spreading this around helps, and if you read this far, thank you for listening. Solidarity.