A little hope, anybody?

[Julie1295]

Hi, I’m Julie and I am a Brooklyn artist and photographer, or at least I thought I was. Now, I dont even know what I’ll be doing with my life. Lost my part time job as a waitress, art show cancelled and no photography gigs since most of my clients were restaurants. I have also been a superhost for the last year and I have worked so hard on turning my home into what its been for my guests: a unique space reflecting the authentic brooklyn artist lifestyle.

In October 2018 my landlord gave me permission to airbnb my extra 2 rooms instead of getting roommates. Seeing it as the amazing opportunity it was, I gave it my all and invested in what was only a dream I had to work to make come true.

After spending months investing and creatively furnishing in a tasteful and thoughtful manner... I was able to finally make it happen! I was able to pay for a 3 bed 15 mins away from Manhattan. I made amazing lifetime friends all over the world, learned to love with doing bedding laundry almost every day and kept my house exceptionally clean at all times.

Even with all of the criticism from my friends and anybody else that knew, I was able to sell them my lifestyle. Constantly posted visual content on my social media, interacted and continue to interact with my guests, got 3 of my girlfriends to start doing it themselves and even attended to meetings to defend our rights as hosts in NYC.

All the work was well worth it up until the beginning of March 2020, of course. Well, more like January but that was just low season. COVID19 couldn’t had waited for a better time to strike... I had been paying for 50% of the total monthly rent for 2 months before this whole thing happened.

And now, end of April. My landlord is telling me that if I am not able to pay for the month of May (total of 3 months overdue) he might as well take this time to renovate. The unique and authentic brooklyn apartment with crooked floors and vintage ceiling tiles, will be teared down and gentrified.

I feel so incredibly lost at this moment because the life I have built is about to go into storage. And I cant help but feel like I am not only loosing my apartment but also my dreams of having enough time to continue working on my career as a fine artist and will probably be forced to leave NYC behind because of it.

I haven’t had any new bookings since Mid March and haven’t been able to find any roommates at this time. 

I really can’t economically recover from this. 

Anybody out there with a similar situation? What are you guys doing to survive?

PS. Unemployment is not an option since airbnb forgot to send me tax forms (I requested them) and I get paid cash for my side gigs. And yes, I have been applying for jobs but at this time I dont even have a place to live...

Help?

Thanks 🙏 

[Helen427]

@Julie1295 

Does your state have a rent freeze and rules in place about moving and landlords during COVID 19?

You may like to see if they do for New York under there Coronavirus legislation bill.

 In New Zealand no landlord can ask a tenant to move, nor increase rents for 6 months in accordance with the Public Health Act, Corona virus Act & Civil Emergency Act whilst it's signed off as been in place.

May I suggest you see if you fit into something similar where you are.

Read through your tenancy agreement & updated regulations that should be publicly available to read.

You sound like you have a very kind landlord, have you spoken to them about the difficulties you would face?

Alternatively, see if you can find a nice ABB property in your area for someone who may not be able to travel back to USA .

There are many people who have left properties and belongings who have left countries all over the world due to borders closed who may not be back.

Take care & yes there is hope.

[Anonymous]

@Julie1295   I'm sorry for the situation you've found yourself in. Sadly, there's not an easy answer here. It's no consolation, but millions around the world are in the same boat as you  -  every job that's lost and every business that fails represents not just a grim statistic but also a real person's crushed dreams and fearful uncertainty for the future. And if there was one thing that was always baked into the crust of life in the gig economy, or the life of a Brooklyn artist in general, it's precariousness. I went through that too in my early twenties - even in my own hometown, I couldn't quite manage to keep an apartment long enough to put roots down, and my trade-off for the pleasure of doing interesting and creative work was that jobs evaporated quickly and there wasn't much chance to save for the future. There was also a deadly virus looming in the background, as people in my life were still getting sick and dying of AIDS. I can look back on it now as all part of the big adventure of youth, but at the time it was a lot of fear and heartbreak, and the resilience to get through it didn't just come overnight.

But it came. A few times over, I wound up very far from where I'd expected to (both figuratively and geographically), and there were opportunities hidden in every setback, if I just remembered to keep moving forward and accept the challenge of starting over.  You're young and talented, and even if your skills are not in enough demand at this moment, you still have them - and if in the worst case scenario you have to leave Brooklyn, you can still take them onward with you to the next stop. You'll lose jobs, apartments, relationships - this isn't the last time life will rip the rug out from under you. But do your best to keep your health and never stop learning and getting better at what you love, and I think you'll keep finding new ways to prosper.

[Helen3]

Millions of us around the world including those living in the poorest circumstances who don't have access to the welfare benefits and programmes we have here in the West have been devastated.

Many have lost all means of supporting themselves and have families they have no way of feeding or looking after.

In these situations I think it's always a good idea to consider that there are others in a much worse off position than ourselves.

You have options to advertise for flat mates during the pandemic. You are a photographer and a waitress so have options to earn a living over and above your STR income once things recover.

In the meantime apply for welfare benefits, access food banks if you need to and go out there and get yourself a temporary job. Certainly in the UK opportunities have opened with Ebay/Amazon, post office, supermarket workers, deliver drivers etc.

Good luck.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Julie1295,

Lovely to meet you. I felt quite emotional reading your post here, I'm sorry it's so hard at the moment. 

One thing that occurred to me whilst reading your post, I wonder if you have come across Airbnb Online Experiences–with your artistic and photography skills this could potentially make an interesting session. I'm not sure if this is of interest or at all suitable, but if it is more information can be found here: Host an Online Experience

I also want to add your not alone in what you are going through,  if you need someone to talk to, know there are people here for you. 

I wish you all the best and I hope to speak with you again. Stay strong and healthy. 

Lizzie

[Karen2391 · Accepted solution]

I came to offer the Virtual Experiences to this artist/photographer/hostess too! I was too dismissive of this new form of Experiences and regret completely my ignorance. I saw an interview Brian gave off-platform where he went into details of philosophy and the projections for this form sounded KRAZY in a mind-changing way! I'm a true believer now, buddy. I've been proselytizing with fervor amongst my talented friends to get in on this like NOW, ride the early positioning and the FREE heavy promotion wave. I'm so excited for them! Not only a tremendous income opportunity, but hosts will be actually creating a brand new, cutting edge art form, interactive virtual performance art! I'm pretty mad about my radio face and mediocre talents, both unfit for virtual success : (