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On the donations we received earlier this year
5 years ago
General
Hi all.
I've been procrastinating posting this for quite some time now, as revisiting this whole saga is still somewhat traumatic. But I wanted to get this done before the end of the year to hold ourselves accountable for how we used the money donated.
For those reading this who are unaware of what happened, back in February 2020 myself and my husband
skawinski were repeatedly harassed and assaulted by a drug dealing gang that moved into the apartment estate we lived on, in the immediate vicinity of our home. It was of an explicitly homophobic nature. Despite repeated reports to the police about the incidents (which were recorded as hate crimes), none of them were arrested while we were there over this. The last night we stayed at the apartment, they were ringing our intercom and making it known that they could get into the building and were outside our apartment door. We essentially had to flee and sofa surf with colleagues and friends until we found a new place to live; we were statutorily homeless, meaning that though on paper we had somewhere we could live in, we were at imminent risk of violence if we did so. Our landlord was trying to hold us to pay off our remainder of the lease fixed term despite the situation which was, as far as he was concerned, not his problem.
We started a donation drive through justgiving to raise the funds to meet this and costs of moving, and we were overwhelmed by the support we received. However:
1) We were able to negotiate our way out of paying most of the remainder of the lease.
2) We were ultimately able to meet most of the expenses of relocating ourselves without excessive financial burden.
I want to take a moment again to thank everyone who donated to this, no matter how large or small. Even though in financial terms we were able to get through this period without digging deep into what we received, it was a very material form of support which emotionally, for both of us, lifted our spirits during a very challenging time. It also meant, knowing what had just landed in my bank account, that while negotiating with our old landlord, when we met our current landlord I could look him in the eye, be up front about the situation (he's going to check for referencing with the old one anyway), and tell him that while we're negotiating the terms of end of tenancy we can meet the full costs of leaving early if it came down to it. Being able to do this was in itself critical to being able to resolve the situation quickly.
That said, I would find it uncomfortable, knowing we had most of the donated cash to spare at the end of the day, to not be up front about what we used it for. On the justgiving page I said that any spare money would be donated to LGBT charities, and what's what we did. We decided we would split the remainder of the donated money equally between ourselves and select charity(ies) for us to donate our halves to.
Skawinski chose two Polish LGBT charities. You might be aware that the situation for LGBT people in Poland is dire right now and the government is creating a hostile environment for LGBT people. The two charities he chose can be found here and here.
Details of the donation itself can be found here.
For my half, I donated the entirety of it to AKT, which is a British charity that deals with homeless LGBT youth and LGBT youth at risk of homelessnes. For me, personally, it felt the most fitting considering the nature of what we'd been through ourselves. Please see their site here: here.
Details of the donation are here.
Please look at these charities and consider donating to them yourselves, they're all for very worthy causes.
And thank you again to everyone who supported us getting through that mess.
I've been procrastinating posting this for quite some time now, as revisiting this whole saga is still somewhat traumatic. But I wanted to get this done before the end of the year to hold ourselves accountable for how we used the money donated.
For those reading this who are unaware of what happened, back in February 2020 myself and my husband
skawinski were repeatedly harassed and assaulted by a drug dealing gang that moved into the apartment estate we lived on, in the immediate vicinity of our home. It was of an explicitly homophobic nature. Despite repeated reports to the police about the incidents (which were recorded as hate crimes), none of them were arrested while we were there over this. The last night we stayed at the apartment, they were ringing our intercom and making it known that they could get into the building and were outside our apartment door. We essentially had to flee and sofa surf with colleagues and friends until we found a new place to live; we were statutorily homeless, meaning that though on paper we had somewhere we could live in, we were at imminent risk of violence if we did so. Our landlord was trying to hold us to pay off our remainder of the lease fixed term despite the situation which was, as far as he was concerned, not his problem.We started a donation drive through justgiving to raise the funds to meet this and costs of moving, and we were overwhelmed by the support we received. However:
1) We were able to negotiate our way out of paying most of the remainder of the lease.
2) We were ultimately able to meet most of the expenses of relocating ourselves without excessive financial burden.
I want to take a moment again to thank everyone who donated to this, no matter how large or small. Even though in financial terms we were able to get through this period without digging deep into what we received, it was a very material form of support which emotionally, for both of us, lifted our spirits during a very challenging time. It also meant, knowing what had just landed in my bank account, that while negotiating with our old landlord, when we met our current landlord I could look him in the eye, be up front about the situation (he's going to check for referencing with the old one anyway), and tell him that while we're negotiating the terms of end of tenancy we can meet the full costs of leaving early if it came down to it. Being able to do this was in itself critical to being able to resolve the situation quickly.
That said, I would find it uncomfortable, knowing we had most of the donated cash to spare at the end of the day, to not be up front about what we used it for. On the justgiving page I said that any spare money would be donated to LGBT charities, and what's what we did. We decided we would split the remainder of the donated money equally between ourselves and select charity(ies) for us to donate our halves to.
Skawinski chose two Polish LGBT charities. You might be aware that the situation for LGBT people in Poland is dire right now and the government is creating a hostile environment for LGBT people. The two charities he chose can be found here and here.Details of the donation itself can be found here.
For my half, I donated the entirety of it to AKT, which is a British charity that deals with homeless LGBT youth and LGBT youth at risk of homelessnes. For me, personally, it felt the most fitting considering the nature of what we'd been through ourselves. Please see their site here: here.
Details of the donation are here.
Please look at these charities and consider donating to them yourselves, they're all for very worthy causes.
And thank you again to everyone who supported us getting through that mess.
I'm also floored that you've donated to LGBT causes here in Poland as well as in England. That's incredible, thank you very much for that.
Our farewell middle finger to him. But it was in his best interests to resolve it rather than drag it out. We were still legal tenants but had removed all of our property from the building. With him knowing gangs had moved into the area - and especially as they'd now got an eye for that particular apartment - it just became a squatting risk to drag it out without being able to find a new (poor soul) tenant to move in there. So he settled in order to dissolve the tenancy and be able to move someone else in. It left us with money to use on something better than an unscrupulous landlord's pockets.