It’s hard out there for an everyone in the world. But especially for freelancers. It’s a tough hustle and sometimes work is scarce, so you can find yourself hours away from being homeless, with no family or other traditional support system to turn to. PJ Gach, a New York-based fashion blogger and freelancer has found herself in that situation, and she’s trying to solve it in a unique fashion. By asking her readers and whoever else she can find on Twitter to pay her rent by donating $7700 to her PayPal account.
Gach, who’s lived in the same apartment in Harlem for 13 years, found herself in such a deep hole after being laid off from her job at Betty Confidential in November. The blogger, whose motto on Tumblr is “I Wear What I Love and I Love What I Wear,” looked for work, but there wasn’t much to be found during Christmas and Thanksgiving. Not having work, she wasn’t able to pay her rent for December, January and February. She eventually found freelance work and was able to pay March and April, but still found herself behind. When she turned to the HRA to get assistance to pay her back rent, she was cast into a Kafka-esque universe where despite the fact that her parents are dead, she was told to get money from them. And that her parents being dead was hearsay.
So she turned to help from her Assembly representative, Keith Wright, whose chief of staff assured her that there would be an investigation of the HRA refusing to help her, and told her not to seek out additional charities so that there were no crossed wires. “I entrusted you with my life,” she told Wright’s chief of staff in a letter she wrote to him when things went south with that. According to Gach, the HRA investigation turned up money that she had already told the HRA she had when she went to ask for help, but despite pointing this out to Wright’s chief of staff, she hasn’t heard from him since the last time they spoke, last week.
When she spoke to us, Gach had raised $500, with her next and possibly final appearance at housing court coming today. Despite her apparent fondness for glam living, Gach assured us that she hadn’t spent herself into a hole and was living paycheck to paycheck before she lost her job. She said she has been living alone in a two-bedroom apartment that she pays $1700/month for, that while she was working, she was able to afford. She’d had roommates she said, but decided to forego them after one of them was “psychotic,” so she’d rather “have no money and live sanely than be afraid in my own home,” but was willing to find another if she was able to pay her back rent.
View Comments (47)
I have a friend like this. Blonde, pretty, and thinks the world owes her the "good life". It's easy to see why she lives paycheck to paycheck - all her money goes to Prada and Gucci. Entitlement plus free-spending equals broke ("only peasants get roommates!"). I'd rather donate to Doctors Without Borders.
Guys, have some empathy here. Most of us have been in difficult situations at one point or another in our lives and have had someone to help us out.
Most of us are lucky enough to have a family we can turn to, but not everyone has that. Everyone needs help getting on their feet at one point or another. No one is going it in life alone.
No need to attack someone in an already difficult and vulnerable situation.
PJ, good luck getting through the hard times. You can do it.
Reality check needed here .Princess refuses to get a roomate in "her own home" . It is not her own - she is renting it from the owners . If she had a roomate she could have had money put aside incase she was laid off. Instead she was "living paycheck to paycheck while still working .
There are a lot of people out of work who are sacraficing and trying hard to survive . Taking in a roomate and or getting a part-time job not in your field .
If HRA does give her any money that should be a call for an investigation .
Roommate*
I have really struggled since I finished my master's degree almost two years ago. I haven't ever had a place to live that wasn't problematic. I lived two different hostels, one in New York, and one in DC, for seven months. In all of that time, I really haven't had the money to pay for a deposit so this really limit my options. I have had to borrow lots of money. I have been temping and looking on Craig's List for anything and everything I can find. At this point, I am probably going to live in a shelter starting tomorrow if I can get a place in one. i want to express sympathy for this person because if I could stay where I am living now (it is $300 a week), I would do anything to make that possible because it has been great during the past month to have a place where I actually feel comfortable. I know $300 per week is a lot of money but I don't have a deposit, so I can't afford these cheaper places that require deposits. I am open to most types of employment, but it isn't easy to get hired for most jobs, and since I dared to think that I might have a career and family one day (despite the fact that I am over 40), I have been somewhat hesitant to take a permanent job that has nothing to do with my career goals because I see how hard it is to get into certain sections of the economy if you don't have experience in that sector. The whole thing is very frightening and my heart is breaking. I don't see any other option but to resign myself to pure subsistence level employment. When I read the critical posts, I wonder if I am guilty of these charges leveled at the person who is going to become homeless. I am always wondering to what I degree I deserve to be homeless and have brought all of my life's challenges on myself. Yes, I dared to want something more for myself, and despite the importance of a career to one's identity, ability to afford a family, and overall happiness, I may not get the chance to have one. I know that so many people in this world have nothing at all, and a meaningful, interesting, challenging career is not something they have the opportunity to contemplate. Knowing all of this, my heart is breaking for myself, and for those who don't get the opportunity to dream the things I have dreamed for myself.
The strange thing is that you would probably be happy to pay her 850, perhaps in two installments, to share her apartment. Yet she is probably going to reject you because she has no trust in others, generalizing that everyone is going to be "psychotic." The obvious solution, using her own resources to share her apartment she is rejecting because she is too "special." All you people who think she is ok to ask for help should send your money to a real charity, which help people who are verified as deserving.
Really!? You are asking people to pay your rent? This is your SECOND time doing this. Take up dog walking, sell your clothes, downsize, do something. DON'T LIVE IN A $1700 apartment. People who live in NYC don't even make that amount each month and are trying to get by. You need to move out of NYC to somewhere less expensive. Try and get a REAL JOB and quit your BITCHING.
She's unbelievable. She's written a response to all the "trolls" (people who don't feel sorry for her and think she should get a bloody job), and it makes her sound even worse! Moron.
Re: "When she turned to the HRA to get assistance to pay her back rent, she was cast into a Kafka-esque universe where despite the fact that her parents are dead, she was told to get money from them. And that her parents being dead was hearsay."
It should have been easy enough for her to prove that her parents are indeed deceased by requesting death certificates. As long as they died in the US, that documentation shouldn't have been that difficult to obtain. Did she even do that before contacting her local representative?
Ridiculous. She's obviously able-bodied and has all mental capacity needed to work. Couldn't get a job during the holiday season? That's mega BS, every retail establishment looks for seasonal employees. If you are really that broke and hard up to pay your rent, you take whatever job you can get. Sometimes that means 2 or 3 jobs, if you must.
ZERO sympathy.
"she’d rather 'have no money and live sanely than be afraid in my own home,'"
Well, I hope you're happy with your choice sweethart! Still living sanely?
Is it anyone's fault that you bought clothes instead of SAVING SOME MONEY!?!?!? At least save a good chunk, THEN spend whatever you want. Common sense...common....
come on, not common