Let me be direct and to the point (a redundancy, I know!). I need help, I need it badly, and I need it quickly. And I am turning to the Kos community as a last resort. Literally.
I am homeless due to foreclosure as well as job losses. Yet for most of the last two years I have had a place where I lived: in my car. Unfortunately, a few days ago, that safe refuge in my life is now threatened too. My car engine began to idle extremely roughly and shudder when driven, and the “check engine” light not only appeared but was flashing. Using my car insurance roadside assistance on Friday morning, I was able to have it towed to a very reputable local car repair shop where I was informed after a few hours that an original coil in the engine’s injection system had corroded and that the coil and two cylinder units needed to be replaced or repaired along with the spark plugs to prevent additional damage.
Ironically, while cars are far from my strong suit, this car right now is my all! It’s my home, my kitchen, my means of food acquisition (I must use food distribution programs since my unemployment is too much to qualify for any food stamps but too small to include both gas and food), my bedroom, my transportation, my storage, and above all my safe space where I can avoid abuses which I witness so many other homeless suffer.
Understandably, the repair shop will not release the car until I have paid my bill in full. Any savings that I once had have long since disappeared, and my unemployment compensation was spent on necessary bills within one day of receiving it last Tuesday. Even if my last unemployment compensation received this last week was not spent on anything, it still would be too small to pay the entire repair bill. Because I don't even have a total of $1.00 in my combined debit and savings accounts, I am looking for help (one or more loans will seriously be considered!) in order to pay the approximately $900 car repair bill.
It’s reasonable for you as a reader to ask why you and other Kossacks should even care about me. Who am I to come to the Kos community and ask for help? Aside from being worthy of assistance by virtue of simply being a human, I also have been a part of the Kos community for 9 years starting as simply a reader for 3 years (shudder! does that make me a “lurker”?) and then becoming a member for the other 6 years just so I could actually make a comment. I actually had to work up the courage and confidence during those first 3 years to participate in Diary comments despite wanting to do so very badly! I can be so unbelievably timid and shy sometimes. And that also makes this particular diary extremely difficult to do.
True, I have never written a diary before, but none of you know or realize what I have done in the real world because of this blog as well as others such as MyDD, Swing State Project, The Carpetbagger Report, and other national and local progressive blogs. The information provided by Markos Moulitsas Zu̒niga, Jeremy Armstrong, David Nir, and Steve Benen and their many contributors to their respective blogs challenged me, informed me, and encouraged and motivated me in my local political involvement as well as in the political telefundraising job (hence the screenname “phonatic”) that I meant to take only temporarily but that lasted 6 years as job markets began to shrink and disappear.
I took what I learned from DK and other progressive blogs and was able to keep up on statewide current events while fundraising for various state Democratic parties such as California, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, or Maryland. While other telefundraisers could only say that “your money will help support ALL Democratic candidates in the state”, I knew like anyone with an ounce of political knowledge that that is simplistic and usually untrue. DK diaries and Kossack intelligence helped me to be able to authoritatively tell potential contributors how their party contribution could not only support Democratic incumbents who I could list by name but also cite the hot races where Democrats who I could also name were challenging wingnut incumbents or fighting for open seats.
With your help, I felt that I could keep the contributors I spoke with connected to what was really happening and to how they could help. My call may have sounded like an urgent plea, but I also insisted on being both truthful and hopeful while instilling confidence that the contributor’s help was necessary and effective. Unlike many of my coworkers, I never had to lie or make up information, and I always chucked scripts that I felt did that. After all, I needed to be able to get to sleep at night!
When our company took on EMILY’s List as a client, I was the only one who knew of it and how it functioned differently from other PACs as a bundling PAC. When an EMILY’s List staffperson came through in 2006 to provide us with orientation and supposedly help us become more effective, a coworker relayed that one potential contributor asked what Democrats were doing in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. The coworker asked for the proper response and was told “I don’t know, but don’t tell them ‘nothing’.” Instead she was told to just tell them about an endorsed candidate elsewhere in Ohio. I joined the discussion and suggested a different reply: that 2006 was seeing a lot of activity in both House races in the Cincinnati area and that EMILY’s List encouraged her to find out more locally because “when women vote, Democrats win” (an EMILY’s List slogan), but in the meantime EMILY’s List was asking her to also help support an EMILY’s List endorsed candidate elsewhere in the state. I pointed out that defeating “Mean Jean” Schmidt was a strong possibility that needed to be acknowledged in order to maintain credibility for EMILY’s List as a Democratic organization. I also saw no reason to spite one situation in order to achieve another when it was not necessary. And in fact, a few months later EMILY’s List itself endorsed Schmidt’s 2006 Democratic challenger Dr. Victoria Wulsin, something I saw coming because of DK, MyDD, & SSP. At break the EMILY’s List staffer told my manager that she enjoyed working with our group but that she was scared of “this one” and pointed me out. Sadly, I realized that she was scared of someone being well-informed and knowledgeable about current affairs. But contributors found it refreshing and responded positively.
DK and the other progressive blogs also allowed me to be able to stay on top of daily developments in Al Franken’s race for the US Senate seat held by Norm Coleman as well as on top of the battle to get Franken’s win certified. Instead of arguing stupidly like one coworker (who didn’t last long) that Franken was certified as the winner but he needed money for a court case (demanding certification was the point of the court case, remember?), I was able to explain the financial need, current legal efforts, the certification process, and the fact that recount trends strongly indicated that Franken was the winner. And when a manager’s script had every telefundraiser but me (I unilaterally corrected my copy) announcing to people across the country that the US Supreme Court had issued rulings for this Senate race recount, I was the only one confident enough to go to management immediately and explain the need to immediately provide factually correct information and correctly tell people that the Minnesota state supreme court had issued the rulings. DK and its community enabled me to conduct informed, intelligent, and ethical fundraising without having to lie or mislead contributors, and my contributors thanked me for being different and for being honest.
While I never had to feel ashamed of how I fundraised, I do feel ashamed to have to come to you in my first diary ever, hat in hand, to ask for financial help that I cannot find anywhere else (and I have really tried). But I also share the above stories with you because I want you to know that you would be assisting someone who, yes, has written no diaries prior to this point but who did take what he learned from the progressive blogosphere and put it to good use to further progressive causes and turned abstract information into fundraising realities.
Unfortunately that fundraising company decided that it did not want to pay “living wages” and began to push out and/or terminate higher-wage employees starting with me. San Diego’s high cost of living as well as the inability to replace that particular job along with the burdens of mortgage and car loans that were textbook examples of contemporary financial industry excesses led to my new car repossession and my mortgage foreclosure. Yet, despite my misfortunes I know that I am more fortunate than some of my other former colleagues who were pushed out or terminated too: at least 2 of them became suicidal. I still hold on to the hope and belief that I will bounce back ... somehow. Perhaps that is just stubbornness, but I regard it as a divine gift which I am grateful for.
San Diego is poorly equipped to provide public transportation for a few different reasons, and owning a car is a necessary evil in this city designedI for private car transportation, Having lived in Chicago which has excellent public transportation, I know what I’m talking about. So I knew that I would have to get a used car in order to get around in San Diego and to survive my imminent foreclosure. Tricked by a dealership’s bait and switch tactics and trapped by a record of being a poor credit risk due to the previous repossession and the upcoming foreclosure, I had to accept an inflated price and a high interest loan. But the car choice itself was a good one, and it has served me well overall.
This car has kept me dry, warm, and secure. On the other hand, the City of San Diego and local social service agencies have failed to provide adequate shelter spaces for the large number and variety of homeless in this city. In fact, I have been told several times that because I am not a senior citizen, a disabled or mentally ill person, a person recovering from addiction(s), a person with HIV or AIDS, an abused woman, or a person with dependent children that I am unfortunately a low priority for housing or shelter assistance.
And tonight as I compose this on my laptop while my car sits at the repair shop waiting for me to pay for its release, I am sleeping on the street. Well, actually, I am typing this outside a closed Starbucks to take advantage of the wifi hotspot that it offers. Then I am going to walk a few blocks and sit on the front steps of the front door of a church because I most likely will not have to leave, because it is well lit and visible, and because I can sleep sitting up with my laptop bag over one shoulder, an overnight bag over the other, and one hand on each handle to prevent sudden theft. I am cold and I am shivering. Despite people who claim to care about me or claim to be friends or claim to be outraged by the economic injustices within San Diego, no one will allow me to even stay on their floor for a night or two. (I never realized that people could be so cruel and still feel good about themselves!) I expect to repeat this delightful sleeping experience again Monday night.
I don’t just want my car back. I need my car back. I do not want to make sleeping on the pavement or in church doorways an ongoing, permanent experience. I want to be able to pick up food supplies and actually eat something substantial. I want to be able to get to the gym shower and maintain personal hygiene. And I want to be able to take a break from this Starbucks and find some private or semi-private time to myself.
So please, if anyone can assist me directly or can steer me towards another person or an agency that can help me as soon as possible, I desperately need it. Now. Please!
5:39 PM PT: A few comments have suggested posting the email address linked to my PayPal account in this diary, and I am following their advice. If anyone knows a good reason to not do this, please comment or send me a message. But for now, here it is: ellis2821@aol.com.
Thanks for the care, concern, and well-wishes that have been directed my way. I appreciate them all.