Dear friend,

I am writing to reach out for help. For the past two years, I have been struggling with homelessness and poverty after losing everything. It has been a difficult journey and I'm still trying to piece my life back together. My situation is desperate; without your support, it will be much harder to get back on my feet again. Just when I think I have reached the end something falls apart and I find myself back at the bottom.

On January 11, 2022, I was evicted from my studio apartment in Ybor. I was unemployed and struggling to look for work. I lost my previous job while dealing with severe health challenges including being hospitalized for sepsis and pneumonia, and dealing with the grief of the loss of my brother-in-law to suicide and not being able to be with my family in the midst of the tragedy due to covid 19 and several members of my family including myself being high risk. I had applied for and been approved for rental assistance from Our Florida, but my studio apartment had been purchased and sold several times while I was living there and was at the time owned by a group of lawyers from St Pete, and I was never issued a new lease so when asked to participate to receive payments from the program on my behalf they refused. Thereby leaving me without any alternatives except eviction.

Upon eviction on the 11th of January, I relocated to a homeless shelter at Tampa Hope, also known as Tent City. Where I lived in a camping tent elevated off the ground on a wooden slate foundation. I lived in a tent, showered in a truck, and used a porta-potty until the beginning of June of that year. No AC or shelter was provided from the weather besides a large canopy where we would meet for lunch and dinner. During this period I experienced being attacked one night while making my way back to the shelter and beaten and had everything left in my possession taken from me (laptop, phone, bank cards, important papers, etc). Then I was taken to the emergency room to recover this, unfortunately, occurred on the eve of my birthday. Leaving me without any way of contacting my family and friends for several days afterwards, until I finally visited a local library to reach out to a close friend. In May of 2022, I was once again hospitalized for 3 weeks due to a very bad shingles infection that I was exposed to from another resident of tent city.

My only salvation from the homeless shelter was a job with Wipro as a loan consultant for student loans. I worked for 4 weeks but after failing an extensive background check having student loans that I still owed and being unable to make arrangements due to all student loans being on hold awaiting a decision from the President and Congress I was once again unemployed and the room I had been renting during my employment had to be abandoned. Since then I have been living in motel rooms, sometimes under FEMA funding, other times from the donation and generosity of friends, and in extreme situations on the street. For most of this period, I was blessed to have an old co-worker and someone who has become a close friend watching and caring for my cat until she was unable to do so any further.

Currently, I am at the cusp of prayerfully finally escaping this seemingly inescapable cycle of poverty and homelessness as the recipient of a voucher through EPIC Health and The Francis House here in Tampa that will assist with an apartment for 21 weeks. I recently applied for and was denied a rental application and lost $253.00 due to a non-refundable cost for the application. Now an apartment has been located but I am awaiting a meeting with the landlord and my caseworkers for finalization, and then I will be starting from scratch again, as now my only possessions consist of my companion Angel, the clothes on my back, my Chromebook and cell phone.

Your financial contributions would change everything for both me and my cat Angel! They would allow me to start anew - allowing me some stability while paying for home internet (in order to work from home), cell phone service, food, clothing, cat food and litter, and basic furnishing and other necessities required to rebuild my life again. Most importantly It will enable me to keep my motel room at Red Roof Inn until I can meet with the landlord, sign a lease and get moved in.

Any kind of donation you could make towards securing my future would be greatly appreciated beyond words can describe – Please don’t hesitate if you feel like you're able to donate something towards making this dream possible – every penny counts! Thank you so much for reading this letter and considering being part of giving me hope and an opportunity to start anew once more! I really appreciate it!

Sincerely yours,
Adontai Mason

Paypal Fundraiser: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8TBVGL5wyA