Artist Seeking Help w/ Car

Los Angeles CA

Description

About me: I’m an artist in my late 30s. I focus on concrete and resin as my primary mediums. Art has never afforded me the ability to solely focus on art; so I work tons of different odd jobs and gigs to get by. Background: During the pandemic; I decided to go see an old friend and stay at her property outside of Santa Fe for approximately six weeks. As I made plans for the trip, I decided to leave my car parked in a guest parking space in the condos where I was living. Id left it here for several weeks before without any problems and the complex had no real parking policy in place, no parking enforcement signage anywhere, etc, etc. When I returned after being in Santa Fe; I immediately noticed my car was gone. I called the homeowners association, they told me they didn’t know anything about it getting towed and advised I contact the city. When I contacted the city, they told me the name of a tow company in Fullerton that had my car. The tow company said they had been called to tow the car by the homeowners association bc my registration experience while I was out of town - the HOA swears they didn’t, but clearly someone did. Regardless how or whom had it towed; it got towed only 4 days after I left town. The tow company informed me to get my fully paid of car back; I would have to come up with over $6k. The daily storage fee was $145, plus additional fees. Did I mention I’m a struggling artist? I live day to day much of the time….certainly don’t have any savings or nest egg of any kind. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to come up with the money, and lost my car. Current Need: I’m generally a very optimistic and positive person, so initially, I told myself losing my car would not be catastrophic to my existence. I’ve always had a car, so at that time, I had no idea how bad, dangerous, unreliable and slow the LA public transportation is. I thought I’d be able to use transportation and the occasional Ubers to navigate around town getting to jobs and just living a normal life. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that not having a car is severely detrimental to my ability to get to jobs, make money and live a normal life. Not having reliable transportation has made me lose countless jobs over the past several months and continues to do so on a daily basis. I had to move out of my apartment because I was struggling to pay the rent, and am now having to rent weekly airbnbs. I have several “regular” job opportunities, but a requirement for each of those jobs is to have my own reliable transportation. I’m hoping that someone with an older car they are considering donating, or some other situation will read this post and decide to help me, an actual person, instead of just donating to an organization where you don’t actually know what’s being done with your car or the money made from selling your car. I’m happy to sign a contractual obligation to pay for the value of the car. I could pay $1,000 as a deposit and could make weekly payments up to $150/week to pay off the value of the car. I know this is a long shot, but figure you don’t get what you don’t ask for. Please don’t send any negative messages. I’m putting this out there in good faith and only want positive energy and responses. Thank you for taking the time to read and consider. - Desperately Seeking Transportation