Help My Home

I have found myself in an unsavory position, and need the means to support myself independently. I've never learned to drive, to get a job or pay taxes, but I need to learn now before it's too late. And I need to get out of here and support myself and my family and build a new life around art, and sculpt a future that won't end in chaos. But I cannot do this alone.

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The disaster of this home started a little over a year ago. My parents began having issues, more than they had been in the past. Things escalated and neighbors got involved, a combination of problems both within and outside the house accumulating to the point that our landlord evicted us on illegal terms. We fought it, but ultimately were forced to move, and in September 2017, we set to move out to the high desert where things would be cheaper.

However, we didn't quite have a place yet to move in, and the date to move out was too soon before we could find a suitable place. Our cousins offered to take us in, and while we began to settle and move with them, our moving van was stolen in the middle of the night, every single thing within the truck, our belongings, our photos, our art, our documents, birth certificates, diplomas -- everything was gone with it. The police hardly made a move to report on it, and it's estimated about $30k worth of belongings was gone in that night. Living with our cousins was not any better, and we found ourselves being robbed by them as well of our money, police coming into the home after scuffle after scuffle, my father's attitude progressively becoming worse and worse.

Eventually, in October, we were able to move into our own place and house, but since then, we have barely recovered from the incidents, and my father was laid off shortly after moving. We've been living on government support, but money has been tight, my father still hadn't found a job. We still haven't gone shopping for clothes, and our house only barely got refurnished and had our belongings replaced, but again, money is tight. For a time my mother and I even had suspicions that my dad was probably doing something with our money and EBT funds, since it seemed like we were just getting lower and lower in money.

I'm stuck. I am a 20 year old Hispanic woman who was supposed to be taught how to survive in this world and be an independent adult, but all my life I was taught to live dependent on him. Don't need a job if he's paying stuff. Don't need to drive if he knows how to drive. Don't need to know how to pay bills or do taxes since he takes care of it. Unfortunately, he's not providing enough anymore, and my mother, my siblings and I are left with nothing to fend for ourselves while he continues to spout nonsense about how he shouldn't have to work anymore. He became violent and unstable, with no way to even reason with him. He swore profusely, saying horrible things that children shouldn't be listening to, putting himself on a pedestal constantly, and threatening violence and to destroy this home simply because he can. He believes his own lies and his old fashioned mindset, and I felt he posed a danger to us. Broken chairs, a broken TV, broken dishes, busted walls, torn down doors and random bursts of violence were what eventually drew the police at our door. On September 6 this year, my dad got arrested, and has been in jail since. He's estimated to either come home September 12, or serve 45 days in jail. We don't know how long he'll be gone.

I didn't want to call for help or do anything drastic unless we had a way of supporting ourselves, but our hand was forced. He's the only provider for this family, the only one who knows how to work and what to do, but refused to help do anything, and now we're paying for that. It doesn't help we're out here in the desert where everything is far apart, outside of walking distance, and I struggle to find a job to even claw my way out. What I need is help, enough money to upgrade my stuff to build my career, enough money to help hold us off on the bills, keep us out of debt and out of the negatives, money to get us clothes and food and water and personal care supplies. Mind you, we haven't even gotten new clothes or shoes since we were robbed LAST year. With this amount, maybe I can even have enough to buy an old used car somewhere. I know the laws and how to drive, I just need practice and my license, but again, only my dad can get that for me, and he's the only one who can really teach me, but...

I'm a freelance digital artist, I have skill in illustration, I take commissions and I used to make YouTube videos, both of which were my only forms of income. Commissions I still take, and I intended on continuing YouTube again (something I had to put on hold because 1. I had fallen into a deep state of depression with everything that had happened and 2. Being robbed, and our current household, plus a lack of tools, has made it difficult to resume). I still want to build on what I did start, I still want to continue going to college some time in the future, I still have hopes and dreams and I do NOT want to let this wretched disaster try to pry this away from me. I have dreams. My siblings have dreams. My mother deserves better than this. My dad wants to give up on us, but I won't let us sink.

But I need your help.