as of 05/14/2025 UPDATING this again!
I got my top surgery on 01/31/2025 y'all rock! and with y'all's help we were able to cover the additional food needs easily and build up a little bit of excess that carried us through February. but it's May now and we're falling behind again. we've also paid off spouse's wheelchair purchase entirely. now it's just regular old credit card debt.
our #MutualAid post now that things have settled down. #MutualAidRequest #TransCrowdfund #HelpFolksLive #HelpFolksLive2025 #MastodonForHarris #Mastodon4Harris #Tzedakah #DirectGiving #DisabledCrowdfund #DisabilityCrowdfund #Crowdfund #Crowdfunding
quick intro: @inoru_no_hoshi and I are two Deaf, disabled, Jewish/Jewish-ish, neurodivergent/autistic/ADHD and unemployed queers in southern California.
aside from food stamps and Medi-Cal we receive absolutely no social welfare benefits while I await any progress in my SSDI application. financial aid helps, but as I told one of my case workers, we put it towards medical needs and then bills and then there's virtually none left and I'm still in the same boat that I'm in to begin with. everything else that we have comes from the generosity of other people like you.
spouse is doing a job training program through department of rehab, we'll see when that turns into a job, and they get money to cover the transportation. I've left university where I was studying Religious Studies and gone back to the local community college studying Addiction Medicine, and while I'm also going through the department of rehabilitation they don't fund any of my shit because I get financial aid I'm sufficiently funded according to them.
anything we have comes from the generosity of others. I'm currently pretty unemployable; all of my previous employment has been in the transportation industry, which I am out of as I am also, for health reasons, out of a commercial driver's license since January 2023 after the very rapid loss of my trucking job for health reasons.
radical transparency because I think everyone deserves to know where the money they give to us is going:
- credit card with about 3500 in charges, because we've been trying to survive since fuck knows when, this was initially a balance transfer card and I'd paid the most of it down and then we ended up needing money we didn't have to pay for things we needed but didn't have. I also made several purchases in anticipation of financial aid that wasn't what we had hoped it would be at community college, so the ghost of those hangs around. I have a couple of other small credit cards too. current monthly credit card payments total about $150. I've paid off the one that was totaling over $200/month, so that frees that money back to the rest of the credit cards.
- cat food and cat litter. our cat Zoey thanks you. but seriously, this is how we're able to buy her wet food and something better than the house store brand kibble that even most of the outdoor cats won't touch.
- occasional boba or other treat food/drinks, because having nice things now and then helps keep us feeling human.
- necessary professional clothing. uncharted territory etc, and it's definitely taken a tone up from what we'd previously been getting away with of living in comfortable athletic clothing and pajamas and stuff.
- food at the end of the month when our food stamps has run out.
everything helps, from the smallest of donations to shares to large donations and anything in between. we really, really need to break out of the bubble we're in and reach some new audiences who might be able to support us, because our close friends do a lot and it's unfair for them for us to end up relying on them so much (although we're very grateful).
payment methods below, with display names since it's different than here.
CashApp: http://cash.app/$ceahettan (a bunch of muppets)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/californiummm (dror lieb)
ask for PayPal or Zelle, they're doable but my PayPal has my deadname associated to it and I try not to have that just floating around the internet.
thank you, we appreciate you all!