My name is Philip Neris.
I have started this campaign in an effort to keep my family safe, off the streets, and to prevent ourselves from losing everything. This is an effort to bring some relief to my mother and alleviate the situation which my mother and I are currently suffering.
As of June of 2014, my mother had lost her job after suffering stress-related chest pains and severe depression. After attending rehabilitation and therapy to deal with her depression, she was able to bounce back and began to look for work again. She has been on job searches ever since with no luck. Fortunately, she was able to collect unemployment income for a few months but the income was insufficient to pay the rent and ended in December, 2014. However, as of September 30th, 2014, our rental lease was up and my mother was unable to renew it so she, I, and a few friends packed up all of our belongings and put them into storage. Unfortunately, one storage unit was not enough and two units were required to store all our belongings costing us approximately $400/month in storage fees.
We've been staying at hotels, motels, as well as with friends and family in effort to keep stay off the streets for a little over six months, now. We left New Jersey and stayed in Florida for five months with my aunt while searching for full-time employment down there but again nothing was achieved. The only work she was able to find was part-time work at a Target store. She never gave up, though, she has always continued to look for work. She finally received several calls for interviews in New Jersey in April. Once again, we packed our car and returned home for the interviews. We returned believing we would finally find relief. She attended all of the interviews and has yet to hear anything back. That was weeks ago. She had also coordinated a job transfer from Florida to New Jersey in the hopes of continuing her part-time employment with Target but somehow that fell through as well. While she should have been a transfer, she was interviewed as a new employee instead and was never hired by the New Jersey store. We still don't know what happened there, but we do know we have no income now.
My mother has followed up on her interviews but the employers have not returned any of the calls. There are no job offers in the works and we are still destitute and in a dire situation. We continue to go to the library every day so that she can have internet service to apply for jobs online. She is not a quitter!
We have been staying at my Grandmother's building which is a senior citizen community in Philadelphia and the management there has allowed us to stay for four weeks. As of May 18th, our stay there will end and my mother and I will be completely homeless with no place to stay, other than our car. We have no money for food, shelter or to pay our bills for the phone, storage and car. She is also behind on several bills and they continue to pile up.
My mother and I have been trying to make this work. We've never asked for help during this ordeal as we felt as if we could achieve this on our own. We've been turned away from numerous social service agencies for one reason or another, due to circumstances such as being unqualified or having no physical residential address.
All of our resources have been exhausted. We simply do not know what else to do. Therefore, I suggested the idea of starting a GoFundMe campaign in an effort to raise some money so that we can at least have enough for the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, etc., and to help pay off the remaining bills which have weighed us down.
My mother is a proud and very strong woman. She has worked over 40 years. She has never had to depend on anyone and does not like to ask for help if she feels she can do it on her own; but this is too, too much and too, too big. Now, she needs the help, and I want to help her.
We just need enough for us to survive so we can continue to find employment and so we can rebuild what we have lost.
If you can send in any donations, even if it's just a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars – whatever the amount, we would be most grateful. Thank you and God Bless.
You can find the donation fund at:
http://www.gofundme.com/u53r6pc
