Simple as that, I'm homeless, not the kind of news you want to hear. If you weren't kept up with my situation or in the know of what's been going on, I've had a roommate (Novi) who has consistently missed or was short on their portion of rent. Regardless of the reasonings (justified or not), this has occurred since the start of November last year. I've been hemorrhaging money to help cover for their portion, with ever-growing confidence of not getting it back each month as it was always something. In October Ken (the other rommate) was in a car accident (they were fine, but the car was totaled) and was tight on funds themselves while everything was happening regarding rent.
Fast forward to last April, the roommate in question, Novi, lost their Money-Order-Check (for the 2nd time) causing us to be late on rent again and if not for Ken’s dad pitching in, we’d have been evicted a month ago. There was a short-term agreement made prior to transfer from the 3-bedroom unit to a 2 bed with Novi as Ken was already moving at the end of the lease and it theoretically would have been cost effective but what happed in April killed it for me and I cancelled the transfer. This put us on month-to-month rent as my rash decision wasn’t a 60-day notice for the Leasing Office. May 1st rolls around and Nivo doesn’t have enough to cover their portion again. Rent was higher, and Ken and I only had enough to pay our portion. To be fair, I had to take Nivo to the ER causing them to miss 3 – 4 days of work, but the results are the same. So, we have until the 9th to pay rent plus late fees or get Evicted. Ken and I chose the secret third option, resign the keys back to the Leasing office, get our security deposit back, sign a payment plan to pay the owed rent and split.
Meanwhile, I was in talks with another individual regarding me moving in with them, but I have not been able to bring my thing into the new space due to some schedule conflicts at the beginning of April, and I haven’t heard word from them in the last 2 weeks, and I can’t sit around hoping for a response to never come. I've been ghosted and the timing is real bad leaving me high and dry.
I feel it important to say, that Novi is a nice person and none of what’s happened is maliciously intended but God damn did I want to strangle that motherfucker each time shit like this came up because of their negligence. I should not be picking up the slack for someone who on record, earns more than I do. There’s a bit more nuance and details omitted to the things that happened, but I believe to have hit the important marks regarding what’s going on and why. Novi and Ken are not real names as it was easier for me to say rather than “roommate 1” and “roommate 2” or "the other roommate" yadda yadda.
So What Am I Doing Going Forward?
• For starters I rented out a storage unit to store my items away. Bed, dresser drawer, clothes, personal items etc. I’ve been selling and dumping furniture. Making sure the Unit is well cleaned before vacating.
• I still have a college class that I don’t want to terminate, wasting all the money my parents spent for this quarter when I’m just a few weeks away from finishing the course. I already had to drop a different class, unable to keep up while dealing with my own problems and the heavy workload of both classes while handling my position as a freelance artist.
• I’m asking a relative if I can temporarily bunk in their space. At the same time, I’ll be looking for available rental listings. Possibly other students are searching for an off-campus roommate. Cheap Hotel, Air BnB?
• Because I’m a student currently, I can freely enter buildings and facilities giving me access to power and Wi-Fi allowing me to continue some of my work on campus.
• Speaking of work, I have 3 commissions in my queue, and I have no desire to abandon them as they’re all so close to finishing, but realistically speaking, things will get extra slow the next upcoming days. This will also apply to my recent raffle winners on BlueSky and discord.
• I want to retry applying for work when my class is done (the job market kind of sucks but I need to try). It may be hindsight to say that I should have found a job months ago, but that won’t change the timeline of events of Novi bleeding my pockets dry owing me an estimated $2400 of rent and utilities. Plus, it’s very difficult for me to juggle school, work, and commissions and my artwork was paying my bills. Looking back on it, The rent situation was always a reason why majority of my art was for commissions never giving me a break to create art for fun.
• Before all of that, I’m Flying back home to Virginia for the weekend, 5/8/25-5/12/25 to attend my little sister’s college graduation. Albeit this was planned and paid for before I fell into this hole, but I still want to go celebrate her accomplishment. as of writing this post (5/6/2025), I’m rushing to be packed up and cleared to relinquish my keys and when I return, I might be living in my car during Georgia Summer.
What Can You Do?
• You are not obligated to help and don’t feel pressured to help when you cannot. I prefer that you take care of yourself before you take care of me. I love and appreciate everyone prior and during this madness, who have supported me, and continues to support me by any means as I trudged through this mess. whether that be through commissions or being a part of my Patreon. Even words are valuable to me. If you wish to help me financially, you can donate to my Ko-Fi or directly to my PayPal. Money can keep me afloat, but it will not undo all the damage on its own. You are not responsible for fixing what Novi failed to do and I must keep my end of the bargain by just landing on my feet and by whatever means, climb up.
• As for my Patreon, I am highly considering putting a freeze on subscription payments beginning June. I don’t feel right leaving the lights on when I cannot confidently create the content you subscribed to in the upcoming months. I do desire to get May’s Melee sketches worked on, but again, realistically that may have to wait too.
