My name is Daphne Frias — I'm an activist, organizer, and storyteller based in New York City. For the last several years, my work has been rooted in community building, environmental advocacy, and amplifying voices that too often go unheard. I've served on the advisory board of Generation Hope, a youth environmental programme at the Natural History Museum in London, and I recently launched my own platform to continue showing up for the communities I love. Organizing has always been my calling — but right now, I'm the one who needs community to show up for me.
For the last three years, I have been the primary financial support for my family. I've carried that responsibility with love and without hesitation. But between a deteriorating political climate that has cost me significant work and income, and a housing situation that has quietly been in crisis for years, I find myself at a point where I have to ask for help.
Since 2017, my family has been living in an apartment marked by neglect. Leaks, mold, bed bugs, rodents, and weakening infrastructure have been our reality for nearly a decade — and every time we've raised concerns, our landlord has responded with subpar, surface-level repairs that never address the root cause. To keep our home livable, we have repeatedly had to pay out of pocket ourselves. Eventually, we had no choice but to withhold rent as conditions continued to decline.
Over the last two years, things got significantly worse.
Water from the apartments above us damaged both the bathroom and the kitchen. The kitchen walls became so compromised that rats gnawed their way through them. My mother's complaints went ignored, and she was left to repair the rat holes herself. In the bathroom, an unaddressed leak caused the ceiling to collapse — onto the sink, into the bathtub, and over the toilet — at around 3am. We scrambled to find a hotel in the middle of the night because the bathroom was completely unusable and we didn't know how much of the remaining ceiling was stable, especially with the leak still ongoing.
The apartment next door became severely infested with bed bugs, which made their way into our home through large cracks in the sheetrock. My bedroom was the most affected. I would wake up covered in swollen bites. The problem was only resolved after my mother spent days repairing the cracks herself so that the bugs could no longer get through.
Three months after the bed bugs were finally dealt with, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
I went through treatment while living in a home where mold continued to spread unchecked. At its worst, the smell moved beyond the kitchen and into the rest of the apartment. The mold grew so thick it began sprouting mushrooms. Unable to relocate, we bought air purifiers to try to manage the odor and limit our exposure to spores.
Some repairs have been made, but we are not out of the woods. Major issues persist, and we have been dealing with leaks again. In the coming weeks, a significant round of repairs is finally scheduled — but with those repairs comes real cost: potential temporary relocation, storage for our belongings, and all of the logistics that come with displacement, even when it's temporary.
At the same time, the current political environment has taken a serious toll on my work. As someone whose career is built around advocacy and organizing, I have lost contracts and opportunities that I depended on to support my family. The financial pressure has compounded in ways that feel overwhelming to admit, but I know that silence doesn't serve anyone — least of all the community that has always been so generous with me.
Every dollar raised will go directly toward helping my family get through this critical window:
- $1,400 — Overdue utility bills
- $600 — Groceries and household essentials
- Remaining funds — Temporary relocation costs if we need to vacate during repairs, storage for our belongings, and additional expenses tied to finally making our home safe after years of neglect
I have spent years showing up for others. I don't take lightly the act of asking for the same. But I believe in community, I believe in reciprocity, and I believe that this is exactly what we do for each other. If you are able to give — even a small amount — it means more than I can say. And if you can't give right now, sharing this with someone who might be able to help is equally powerful.
Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for being here.
With so much love and gratitude,
Daphne
