While our need is far greater than the $1500 I am asking for help with today, this will prevent our eviction, losing our home, pay our car insurance set to cancel tonight and register my husbands car that was due in June. I have nowhere else to turn. I have no more ideas as to where I can find help and robbing Peter to pay Paul has been more than exhausted. The overwhelming stress, of just trying to survive, is destroying us, emotionally, mentally and physically.
December 19, 2021 my husband became ill and had to be off work. Despite taking multiple test for Covid, which returned all returned negative, he was admitted to intensive care on January 11, 2022 with a severe case of Covid Pneumonia where he remained until January 16, 2022. In that 1 month our son also got Covid and was home sick. I know I got it but being the person who had to take care of our family in that moment meant I had no option but to do whatever it took to stay standing. My husband was unable to return to work until March 18, 2022. During that time I applied for Short Term Disability and FMLA for him. Sixty percent of his normal income was better than nothing I thought but instead it was the beginning of this nightmare that continues today. First payment of STD didn’t come until February 26, 2022 and it was only for $236! He did not receive any further payment from them until the day after he returned to work. That only happened because I went through hell with his HR dept. and the STD provider and making it part of, what was to become, my new full time job, surviving. Things only got worse upon him returning to work. His employer took his entire paycheck not just once but three times to repay insurance premiums they said he owed. I thought getting sixty percent of his income was bad now we had zero for almost 2 months. This lead to us having to take 401K loans, expensive pay day loans, title loans on our vehicles and pawning countless items that we also are about to lose. I also had to apply for Rental Assistance, Food Stamps, HEAT assistance and all that those processes entail. I also discovered, when going through my husbands paystubs, that his employer had been imputing his income for my portion of the insurance benefit because I was his Domestic Partner and not his legal Spouse. By law I am his legal dependent and they should not have been doing this. This began an entirely new battle that continues to this day in an effort to recover that money along with the money they kept his entire paychecks for, which I found out was also illegal.
It all got a lot worse on October 11, 2022, just 7 months after returning to work from Covid, my husband was badly injured on the job. His had was broke in several places and required immediate surgery. Once again we were living on sixty percent of his income and once again when he returned to work February 26, 2023 they kept his entire paychecks for multiple pay periods leaving us nothing.
Through all this we had to keep refinancing the high interest loans loans we had taken out, took out another 401K loan, made a hardship withdrawal from 401K, lost our Food Stamps because now that he returned to work we were “making to much money” so I began that battle as well which continues today. We also had an increase of our rent of almost $400, had to pay for repossession of my husbands car and were trying to find an attorney for the employment issues who had a free consultation and would work strictly on a contingency fee with no retainer.
Today we are paying out over $600 dollars a month for everything we had to borrow during my husbands illness and injury. We were wrongfully evicted (very long story) and we have been battling the number one eviction attorney in our state for the past year as Pro Se Litigants, all of which is reliant upon me because he is at work. We have been denied any help with our rent both in the previous apartment and with our current lot rent. Why? Because we received rental assistance during Covid! My parents helped us by our mobile home and what have they received for helping us out by carrying the mortgage? One payment in a year. I have applied for the Housing Assistance Fund and been denied twice and currently awaiting my appeals hearing. We are going to be evicted which also means the loss of the home we are buying which will leave us nowhere to go. I am faced with the reality of having to handle another court case on our own for the employment while still battling the previous landlord in court. The application for Food Stamps has issues, again, and without the Food Stamps there will be another fight trying to get HEAT assistance and the state still won’t come to our aid with any assistance for rent. We have also been on the waiting list for HUD Section 8 for over a year now.
We just need to save our home, vehicles and have a mere second to breathe. The cost to pay of everything borrowed during Covid and bring the mortgage current etc is $20,000 and with God’s help we will find a way to make that happen.
Today $1500 will save our home, vehicles and give the chance to fight another day. I can’t begin to tell you what it would mean to us if anyone can see their way clear to help us out with this money. Words would never be enough. We are in need of a miracle and help from people we don’t even know. I turn this over to God now and pray for help.
Thank you so much for reading our story and if there is anything you can help us with know we would forever grateful. God speed to you and yours.
With Love,
Our Family
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/my/profile