Hello, good souls of the world!
I’m Jess, a girl living in NYC who has fallen on hard times and hoping to stay in my apartment long enough for some good to come in.
2025 has been a year of loss and pain, growth and healing a slower process this campaign is to raise funds to maintain stable housing for myself and my two cats through the winter months.
I have 10 days to prevent my eviction 😭 the updated counter is for December rent so I can get a stay of eviction while I declare bankruptcy to give myself some breathing room. The eviction notice arrived on 12/15, praying for a Christmas miracle 😭
if I don’t make this goal I will have nowhere to go. NYC is in dire straits with the homeless population, and keeping my girls in a shelter would be impossible. Please give me more time to find answers, I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle to end 2025 🙏🏻
I was a teacher for many years, and then a librarian until the pandemic. I spent my life working with kids, but school systems are hard and in 2021 I left the classroom for social work. I was a social worker in supportive housing working with kids for a couple of years and things were going well… until September 2024 when my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died in January.
My dad was my only family, and losing him was the worst time of my life. With less than a year since I lost him, I’m still deep in the worst part of it. Losing my dad wasn’t all, as in December I lost my companion cat of 12 years suddenly. Within a month I lost two of my greatest loves, and I haven’t been the same since.
Then after I return from bereavement to an emptier home, I am told my position was being eliminated and I was being laid off. This was in March, and the third major loss in four months. I took the layoff, collected unemployment, and spent months fighting with HRA (social welfare agency in NYC) for any kind of support.
The story of 2025 continued, and I lost my other cat Jasper to sudden kidney failure in July, making him the fourth major loss within the year. He was 10 and losing him was hard.
So this year has taken everything. But it gave me the two pretty girls you see above, Starlight and Midnight. I adopted them from Asheville Humane Society in January, they came to NYC with me and brought life into the house. My girls got me through the waves of loss, but being able to work under such a massive weight of grief was nearly impossible.
Now it is almost December, and I am facing eviction after not paying full rent for months. I finally am receiving social welfare support (rent assistance, SNAP, cash assistance) which helps immensely. Unfortunately I still need to pay the rest of rent while I look for a permanent job. This fundraiser is specifically for December rent, so I can file a 30 day stay of eviction while I declare bankruptcy.
I am working with charities to pay down arrears and looking at every agency I can for help. This money is to keep my cats and I housed and fed while the various processes work, and to keep us from being homeless in the winter.
During this season of giving, any help is greatly appreciated, and I am hoping that 2025 will end better than it began. Thank you and blessed be!
