Curate, connect, and discover
In the last year, I’ve had to move five times. My parents are both emotionally and verbally abusive, and my sister was frequently physically abusive(on one occasion, leading to an injury that’s left me disabled). My property was destroyed on multiple occasions, I wasn’t allowed to eat, and I was locked out of the house several times. I feared one of those nights, I’d be left in the rain with my phone taken away, and not let back in, no way to contact anyone.
I had to run in the middle of the night a few months back. I left behind more than half of my things and my beloved dog, Dewey(who, up until this week, I was trying to strategize bringing to live with me) because I feared for my immediate safety. What’s worse, when I moved in with a friend right after, I left my suitcases on their fenced-in porch and someone stole one of my four bags, so I lost a quarter of my things less than two weeks after having to leave the rest. My entire life fits in just three suitcases now.
I had been living with a friend and working on getting health care to treat my injuries and get back on track weight-wise, and then get a job as soon as I physically could. But I didn’t have time—our other roommate abandoned us even before the lease was up. I wasn’t making money, and my friend just lost their job due to covid. We couldn’t afford rent in the expensive area we were living in, plus our roommate trashed the apartment before she left and cut contact. We didn’t have the funds to continue living there, so we had to pick everything up before I even got settled and move again.
Both my friend and I are disabled, so they had to leave some of their things behind, and we ended up burning through both of our savings getting out here. The plan was to temporarily crash with their mom, just until we could get an income and money enough to pay for a place of our own. But within three days of being there together, their mom threatened us, verbally abused us, and watched us. She installed multiple cameras, one in a common area and one in our bedroom, and used them both while she was home, to watch us when the door was shut, and while she was at work. She did this without knowledge or consent, and we were entirely unaware we were being watched at first. We spent Thursday night with the door barricaded because neither of us felt safe without it.
Friday, we were kicked out of the apartment with my friend’s cat, and abandoned on the curb with our bags. We had to scramble for money for an Uber and a hotel room, and we ended up waiting for almost three hours at night, when it was 37 degrees. We don’t have money for toiletries, food, or water, and we only have a few days of safety where we’re at.
Please, if anyone can spare even a few bucks to pay for something to eat, and another day or two of warmth and shelter: @/ipetrera on venmo, @/isapetrera on paypal, or our gofundme, which also has pictures attached.