Help me pay rent!

Hi! My name’s Arran and I’m a disabled/chronically ill bi and agender femme, I also have severe OCD and C-PTSD as a result of surviving long-term abuse. At the moment I rely on government benefits, but thanks to a mistake (someone writing my address down wrong), the people in charge of giving me housing benefit assumed I’d moved and terminated my claim.

Housing benefit covers my rent and is very important for my survival. I’ve been trying to get it sorted for weeks and they keep promising payment soon but last month I had to borrow money from friends to pay my rent. As you can imagine it’s a very stressful and guilt-inducing thing to have to do.

I thought that the payment would be reinstated soon and I wouldn’t have the debt hanging over me for long time. This didn’t happen and now rent day is rolling around again (sooner than expected because I forgot until now how short February is).

I would be very scared to ask my landlord if I can pay him later because he’s a misogynist with a power complex who has made his distaste of me very clear for daring to have boundaries by making my life hell whilst he was here (he only lives here part time) and ignoring all my communications about the repairs that need doing in the flat whilst he isn’t.

He’s made me very concerned for my safety. I’m also on very dodgy legal standing as I am a lodger not a tenant. Plus I don’t really know when exactly it will be reinstated.

I’ve set the asking price for £600. My rent + council tax is about £570 and the remainder will go towards bills like heating which is very expensive this time of year in Scotland. If my benefit gets reinstated in time the money will go to paying back the friends I borrowed from.

It’s possible I may get a backpayment of benefits, in which case if you’re also a marginalised/broke person you can message me and I’ll try to get your donation back to you (obviously can’t do so if you have donated anonymously).

I’ve set up a justgiving account but it takes a few days to verify. I will reblog this with the link when it does. For now, my paypal is monnie_mo[at}hotmail[dot]com.