Scenes from an Eviction (Fight?)

Fuck ChatGPT

Two days before New Year’s and I’m in the HRA office trying to ignore a screaming child. I arrived at 9 and thought that I could get out early but it’s noon and I’m starving. I tell myself that the children are just bored and impatient; they don’t have self-control. I still hate them. I even say Shut Up in their general direction but they don’t notice. Years ago, I was that child stuck in a depressing welfare office as my mother had to meet with someone for benefits, because Dad (William Riley Oman who is most likely dead) never paid child support.

My GoFundMe

When I get to the window, I am friendly, relieved; I even tell the clerk about how ChatGPT killed my term paper writing business. Few students want to pay $25/hour when they can get a slightly worse paper for free. Professors don’t care. The last time I was at the HRA office, I met a one hit wonder from the 80s named Huey “Baby” Harris. He was there to cancel and replace his SNAP card. He was living with people who stole his benefits.

I looked up his hit and I like it.

I’m inquiring about a one shot deal. The one shot deal will pay my rent if its approved. Only the judge told me that I would probably get rejected because my back rent is $32,000 and they only want to pay $25,000 so I should also figure out how to come up with $7000. I think about making a new Gofundme. Same reason but different level of desperation. The HRA clerk tells me that my application is still pending. The last HRA clerk told me that it was rejected because I didn’t answer the phone when they called. They didn’t leave a message. I did talk to someone when I first applied for Cash Assistance and I thought that covered the one shot deal. Apparently not. I also request a Shelter Allowance that will pay my landlord directly.

It’s only $350 a month but every bit helps.

It’s Xmas week and two social workers visit me on the same day. My landlord doesn’t want to evict me because if I’m homeless, they aren’t getting the $32,000. They want the government to pay my rent. A woman from the accounts receivable called Adult Protective Services. Then I call APS. Hence, two social workers. One suggests that I apply for disability, which takes three hours and still needs paperwork. She also suggests the Shelter Allowance request and a form to start the process for free housing. She doesn’t tell me that no one gets the free housing unless they spend at least a year in a homeless shelter.

I have cats. So that’s not really an option.

The social worker tells me that APS primarily helps people who can’t manage their own expenses. If I had money, I would have turned it over so that they could make sure that my rent and my bills were paid. My roommate overhears the conversation and now knows about the eviction. Most likely he’s now actively looking for another place to live. Now I’m worried about whether he’s going to keep giving me rent checks for his room.

It’s 2024 and my landlord meets with me because I’ve been underpaying the rent since ChatGPT. It’s been piling up. Long ago, he promised to never evict me but that was when I was three months behind. He mentions that it’s easier to get charity if there’s an actual eviction. I ask him not to. He sends me off to several offices to ask for money. Catholic Charities tells me that they don’t have money. No one has money. Other places tell me that I’m not desperate enough. In October 2024, I stop actively looking for term paper writing work after Breonna James hires me and spends all night sending abusive emails before refusing to pay with a bullshit excuse about my paper being 52% AI according to the detectors.

It’s 2025 and I’m still struggling. I’m struggling to find work. I’m struggling to sell stories and post work on Kindle. I send out my resume to every place that Indeed suggests. I connect with strangers on LinkedIn. I seek work on Reddit. I ask all my friends. I desperately need a regular job, even though I haven’t worked a 9-5 job since 2008 (hence the disability application even if the disability is ADHD). I’m so desperate that I even fall for scams including the “buy all the computer equipment” job which I believe ends with me paying out my own money for computers that never come. There was also the “receive packages and repackage them and mail out” one. That one is already illegal because it’s a stolen goods laundering scam. I almost give them my bank account information. I did give them my social security number, but lots of luck trying to take out new credit cards with my credit.

I also stop paying Care Credit because I already paid for that cat’s operation. He died anyhow. Also, the interest rate was too damn high.

During 2025, my landlord’s lawyer takes me to court in Brooklyn. They never serve me. They get a default judgment because I don’t know about it. I get a post card saying that they are suing me and they could start eviction if successful. I wait for someone to serve me. Shortly before Rosh Hashana, I receive a marshal’s notice saying that they are going to remove me by the end of September if I don’t respond. I look up that marshal and discover that she’s legit and makes a ton of money kicking people out of their homes. I go to housing court and file an Order to Show Cause.

I go to the local JCC. I talk to a social worker. She’s sympathetic. The main woman in charge then repeats all the facts of my case as if I’m stupid. I say that my landlord didn’t want to evict me and she says “guess they changed their mind” in the nastiest way possible. I also remind this woman that she’s the same one that told me that JCC wouldn’t help em if I didn’t have eviction papers hanging over my head. I went in repeatedly asking for help. Now that I need help, she says that I owe too much and suggests that I go to Met Council. She also gives me gift cards for the local grocery story.

I have yet to go to Met Council. I also have a number for a law office that might help. Supposedly the Courts had a Public Defender office. The Public Defender office didn’t have a lawyer for me, but I talked to a law student who gave me helpful advice. I should answer the case and tell them about the bathroom being moldy.

I get many helpful bits of advice, but if I followed up on everything I’m supposed to do I’d have no time to look for a job, work the few jobs that I have. Almost every time I follow up on advice, I end up waiting forever to find out that they can’t help me regardless. It’s very disheartening.

I think about Sruly Heller. Ten years ago, he was very popular in Washington Heights. He put up a Gofundme and when one woman warned that he was not a good person to help out, they ostracized her. Only he kept traveling to Europe and Israel to visit friends, so how much did he actually need the charity? Because people liked him, he made over $36000 on his first GFM. Most likely, he spent it on drugs. A few months later, he put up another one. And then another one after that. All of his GFM’s drip with sincerity but his friends stopped believing him. Last I knew, he was living in New Orleans and in with the crowd calling Israel an Apartheid Genocide State. Since he’s Jewish, he can play kapo and get funding from Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups like CAIR and JVP.

Usually I don’t wish that I was a manipulative creep, but I envy Sruly’s ability to con an entire community. I was always too blunt, too abrasive, less likely to automatically support someone’s exhibit or concert. I certainly was never going to open up my apartment as the prime party location. I know that I have a better life, because I have genuine friends while Sruly has only targets, but I would love the GFM success.

It’s December 17. I’m in court again. I meet a new lawyer who doesn’t even know the case. He calls my landlord and they give me a pretty good deal. Basically I have to make rent every month until March 31 when I pay out everything. Presumably the local government should come through by then. The lawyer leans on the fact that there was a default judgment. The judge doesn’t accept the agreement. The lawyer rewrites it. The judge again finds problems. I try to sell the law clerks on my writing services and mention that I published Nothing in the Basement by Romie Stott. If they buy 10,000 copies each, I’m set.

I’m about to suggest that the landlord’s lawyer go back to school for a different career. I can certainly write his personal statement. I arrive at 930 and I don’t leave until 430. Before the last case, I listen to another tenant ask many annoying questions before agreeing to move out of his squat pad. He needs assurance that if he moves out, no one will try to get him for back rent. He seems clueless. He even asks the judge for legal advice. At one point one of the lawyers exclaims “What do you want? You lived rent free for three years!!!” The judge tells that lawyer to cool it, but everyone in that room sympathizes with that lawyer.

I’m still looking for work. I join the Door Dash app. Tonight I went down to the Upper West Side and waited for orders. No one ordered anything near me. Door Dash has to pay $21 an hour but only when you’re actually on orders. So I spend an hour delivering. I might get $10 and then on the following Monday, Door Dash gives me $11. If I spend an hour waiting for an order, I get nothing.

No one tips.

I get writing jobs. I get editing job. I worked a couple acting gigs this last year. I even saw the back of my head in The Beast in Me. I sold “Go Ask Ophelia” to Cosmic Horror. In 2024, I sold “Discourses on the Seven Headed Monkey” to Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology for $350 - the most I’ve ever gotten paid for a story. I’m applying for Creative Writing or English professor jobs. My friend told me that he could get me into his college’s English Department but got sketchy on the details. I haven’t seen him since. I spent three days just sending out my resume and cover letter to every college in NYC. I received encouraging emails but no jobs. I wonder if I could teach my own Creative Writing classes, but I don’t know how I would charge for them.

I even managed to publish a new Dybbuk Press book. And it’s really good.

Artistically, I’m more successful than ever. Financially I’m fucked.

If I don’t get $2090 together by the fifth, my landlord can again call the marshal and I again will have to go to court. If I don’t fill out a form for Fedcap every day and log onto Zoom Calls twice a week for classes like “How to write your resume” and “Don’t Steal from the Office” my Cash Assistance could get cut off. Fedcap is supposed to help Cash Assistance recipients find jobs but the only jobs they offer are for fast food and security. I wouldn’t mind, but they don’t pay enough to make rent and I’m overqualified.

Anyone have a list of grants I can apply for? Anyone want to write those grants when I can’t pay up front?

I am going into 2026 lonely and depressed and broke, knowing that I could be homeless before 2027. Calling the state “unhoused” won’t fucking help. Even more fun, I’m on fucking welfare. SNAP didn’t seem like welfare, but Cash Assistance is definitely welfare. You know how people think that welfare recipients are just lazy bastards who want to live off the government? Being one of those welfare recipients doesn’t change that. Logically, I know that it’s not true, but emotionally this is making me feel like a leech.

Happy New Year, I guess.

I am a professional writer/editor. If you like me, please consider getting a paid subscription, donating to my gofundme or hiring me. My email address is omanlieder@yahoo.com or you can

You can also buy Nothing in the Basement from Strand.

Here’s that song by Huey “Baby” Harris -

Also I self-publish some stories on Kindle including Snuff.