Hello Good Samaritans. I’ve never asked for money online before and I’ve never seen a site like this. What a godsend it would be if anything became of this so here goes.
I am a disabled Army vet. I can provide DD-214 honorable discharge paperwork and full disability proof from the VA upon request. I receive a total of roughly $1800 in monthly benefits. I can provide paperwork on this too. Anything I represent I can prove if necessary. At this exact moment, that is my only income. I am 52 years old and live with one cat, Teddy-cat, a tuxedo domestic shorthair who is approx 7 years old (I’m not the original fur-parent).
In late 2019 I was happily although ignorantly married to a woman with multiple sclerosis. We met on Tinder.
.
Her boyfriend had left her. He didn’t want to push a wheelchair around.. MS attacks in roughly two year cycles, targeting the myelin sheaths that protect neurons in the brain. An attack could manifest as a permanent loss of balance, paralysis, cognitive dysfunction, anything the brain controls which is everything.
I paid her car current two weeks. I had been praying to God for a woman with a good heart and I didn’t care if she was 500 lbs Not 500 lbs but being with her likely DID mean pushing a whechair at some point, or a zillion other things. Would I step up?
I decided I would do it. She was a sweetheart, a gift from God. I had been selfish in past relationships, I admitted to myself, and it’s time to be unselfish. Once I’d crossed that mental bridge, I was all in.
Stephanie had been denied Social Security disability on her first attempt. The state doctor said she was faking it. This enraged me.
I did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, everything for the next two years. We eveb took a trip to Washington DC, she’d never been there. At the National Archives, she took a picture of the Declaration of Independence despite a sign saying it was a crime to do so. The look on her face was so mischievous. I loved her even more.
Stephanie was denied on her appeal in mid-November 2019. The judge thought she was faking too.
The mask came off right afterwards. Her voice lost the girlish tone it had, becoming sharp and caustic. She looked at me with disdain. I was pathetic to her.
I left immediately and left her everything I couldn’t fit into my SUV. I rented a room out of a house. My side biz went from $3k/mo profit to almost zero due to COVID. Cell phone stores were closing and those were my bread and butter. I sold my inventory off at a steep loss just to be able to eat and buy gas.
$1000/mo was too much to have to share a bathroom with three other people and without the business income I was priced out of that area. I wanted a fresh start anyway. .
I moved to Albuquerque and rented a one bedroom apartment for $725/month on July 2, 2020. I paid rent on time and in full in August, September and October of 2020.
In September of 2020, I found out that 1) California had canceled my ~$800 in monthly benefits for food and medical, and 2) that New Mexico had denied me for them. I had been receiving $191 in CalFresh food benefits monthly, along with medi-Cal benefits which paid my Medicare premium of $205, my 20% co-pay for Medicare labs and office visits, and lost all prescription drug coverage which had been 100%, adding $354 between the two in monthly out of pocket. The amount I lost exceeded my entire rent.
I applied for COVID benefits which covered my rent for 15 months. My landlord also tried some dirty trick constructive eviction techniques like turning off my utilities for months on end, and I was able to get a few months of rent abated but not the actual number of months it was off.
I was not able to save any money by not paying rent for 15 months due to the fact that the rent coverage did not equal the amount I lost due to the benefit loss. I don’t make enough to do both without the help I was getting in California.
I have an eviction proceeding for Writ of Restitution this week. My GMC Envoy had all four tires slashed when I was at the laundromat about a year ago. I have no idea who did it or why. I tried to drive it but it was impossible. I didn’t have money to tow or fix it so I put a note in the window to please not tow. It was towed anyway and I couldn’t afford to get it out. I haven’t had a vehicle in over a year.
It’s just me and Teddy-cat who is a sweet, loving animal that doesn’t deserve what’s about to happen. By August 1st and possibly by Wednesday, August 27th (depending on if Judge issues Writ same day or grants a few more) there will be a Writ of Restitution for premises. I have no way to get the furniture into storage, to rent a U-Haul to get it there if I had somewhere to take it, and no money for deposits or prepaid rents. Everything I owned that was sellable on Craigslist or eBay has been sold off. I have no computer, no tablet, no wifi, no TV anymore.
If I am still here when the Writ is issued, I will be removed and have to leave my belongings behind. Teddy will be in a cat carrier with nowhere to carry him.
This is the pending certainty that now draws frighteningly close and prompts my request.
I am not a victim. This is my fault. I’ve known this was coming and I have failed to come up with a solution. I kept putting it off because the stress hurt my head and the fear paralyzed me. I feel ashamed. This is hard.
I am asking for help getting back to California where I can reapply for benefits and begin rebuilding my life. I receive $1648 
on August 3rd. I have no money at all this very moment.
I would ideally like to get enough to buy a cheap $2500 vehicle so that if worse comes to worst, we won’t be on the street when the eviction hits. Anything beyond that would help get gas, insurance, registration, storage unit, and motel until the 3rd. Come the 3rd, I’ll have enough to rent a room again in California where I can file a new application with social services.
If anything at all is provided to assist me and my cat, I promise to repay it or pay it forward via the same mechanism, at the Good Samaritan’s option.
Thanks for reading. If any corroboration in the form of documentation for a single representation I’ve made here today is desired, just ask and I’ll be happy to post it.
God bless all of you Good Samaritans, I didn’t know people really did this on any kind of scale. You are the counterbalances to an increasingly unfriendly world.
D. Brian Smith
Teddy J. Kat