Emergency housing campaign · August 31 deadline
I am Gemma Serenity Gorokhoff. For ten years, my husband, Sascha, and I structured our lives around helping my adult son remain well enough to work, keep his employment, and build an IT business whose revenue supported our household. When my son left on March 7, he took the household’s only car, and the employment and client income on which we had all depended was no longer available to us. Now my son is demanding that we leave the home we fought to secure. Sascha lives with severe, unrelenting neurological pain, and in our daily experience, living with our cats is the only pain-mitigation strategy that consistently works for him. We urgently need a permanent home where our family can remain together.
Organized by Gemma Serenity Gorokhoff in Maricopa, Arizona
0 supporters · 26 days until the stated deadline
Names are shown as initials for privacy. Amounts include the recorded value of financial and in-kind support.
I am Gemma, and Sascha is my husband. On August 3, my son sent a written demand stating that our home will be placed on the market and that Sascha, the cats, and I must be fully out by August 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Arizona time.
The message says no extension will be granted. It says the sale will move forward while we are still living here unless a fully funded purchase agreement is produced immediately. I am seeking appropriate legal review of our rights, including the effect of our cohabitation agreement. But legal questions do not stop the clock, feed the cats, or give my family a safe place to go.
My campaign goal is $500,000: enough to make a cash offer on a permanent Arizona home, move every cat safely, and give our family twelve months of stability while our businesses grow into sustainable income.
The cats have been at the center of our lives for as long as either of us can remember. We grew up with them, found comfort in them, cared for them, and mourned them. To us, they have never been possessions. They are our children: distinct little lives with whom we share years of love, trust, routine, and belonging.
For Sascha, that bond carries another dimension. My husband lives with myelomeningocele, unshunted hydrocephalus, Arnold–Chiari II malformation, and severe neurogenic pain that never switches off. In our lived experience, sharing his life with the cats is the only pain-mitigation strategy that consistently works. Their warmth, purring, gentle pressure, familiar presence, and daily routines help him regulate stress, redirect attention from pain, sleep, and remain engaged when a flare makes ordinary activity difficult. Each cat knows his body, his boundaries, and his quiet signs of distress.
I came to the United States to rebuild a life after years marked by domestic violence and upheaval. Sascha—an American citizen who knew he would never have biological children because of his disability—made that move for me and my children. From the time my son was 18 until he was 28, Sascha and I organized our home, work, and daily lives around helping him build a future.
For ten years, Sascha and I helped my son navigate recurring mental-health crises, preserve employment, serve his IT clients, and regain his footing after destabilizing periods. We also helped scaffold and run the IT business behind the scenes. As long as we could provide that constant structure, my son was able to earn the income that supported the entire household. But sustaining him through the upheaval and domestic conflict consumed our time, attention, and emotional capacity. Our own businesses, income, savings, and long-term security repeatedly had to come second.
When we bought our home in Maricopa in 2023, my son’s employment qualified the household for the mortgage. Our unpaid work at home and inside the business helped make that income possible. We also entered into a cohabitation agreement intended to document our equal stake in the home we had all worked to create and preserve.
Then, at 2:34 a.m. on March 7, 2026, my son quietly left with only essential belongings—but also with the household’s car and the only active sources of revenue: his employment income and the IT clients whose work we had helped support. The financial assistance promised in the letter he left behind did not materialize. Sascha, the cats, and I were left to build a new life without income or transportation.
For five months, we have survived because friends and acquaintances gave money, groceries, transportation, household supplies, urgent bill payments, and essential cat food and litter. Food banks, pet-support groups, churches, and utility-assistance organizations also stepped in. Their compassion kept our family going while we rebuilt our work virtually, learned new technologies, and created the foundations of new digital businesses.
Then the crisis became even more severe. On July 28, a notice was hand-delivered at my son’s request. It gave us ten days to produce a purchase agreement backed by verified institutional funds—or face having to leave by August 31 with every cat. The stated reason for selling was the delinquent mortgage and risk of foreclosure.
Sascha and I responded by securing access to $9,000—enough to cure the stated mortgage arrears and prevent the threatened foreclosure. We asked my son to accept those funds, bring the loan current, and give us time to complete a properly financed transfer into our own names. He declined, stating that he intended to sell the home anyway.
That is the heartbreak at the center of this campaign: after a decade spent helping my son remain stable, employed, housed, and able to earn, his decision now places our own home and stability at risk. A rushed sale in a difficult market could erase the home we fought so hard to keep, while more affordable distressed properties compete in the same area. We cannot build our future around another person’s decision ever again.
Most rentals restrict the number of animals allowed. Splitting up the cats would fracture a bonded family and remove the continuous circle of companionship that helps Sascha through unpredictable pain and bedbound periods. For us, securing a home we can control is not a luxury—it is the only durable way to protect the whole family and prevent this crisis from repeating.
A cash purchase gives us what another fragile arrangement cannot: speed, certainty, no mortgage-qualification delay while our businesses are still scaling, and control over a home where every cat is welcome. Your support will cover the purchase, a safe move, immediate living and cat-care costs, and one year to turn the work we have built into dependable revenue.
Once our family is secure, we dream of exploring a properly organized nonprofit cat sanctuary: a lasting refuge where vulnerable cats can be safe, loved, and cared for. That is a future aspiration, not a promise or an existing charity. This campaign remains a personal fundraiser, and gifts are not represented as tax-deductible.
Any amount moves us closer to safety. If you cannot give, sharing this page with someone who understands that animals can be family—and vital disability support—is an equally meaningful act.
With gratitude,
Gemma Serenity Gorokhoff—for Sascha and all our cats
The notice hand-delivered July 28 gave us ten days to produce a fully funded purchase agreement. The latest written message, received August 3, reinforced and tightened that demand: it set an exact move-out time, refused any extension, and said the sale would proceed without immediate proof of institutional funding. Identifying information is withheld for privacy.
“Fully vacated on or before August 31, 2026, at 11:59 PM MST.”
“No extensions have been or will be granted.”
My son states that he is proceeding with listing and selling the property and will halt that process only upon receiving an executed purchase contract and proof of secured funds.
This is a redacted public summary of the most recent notice—not a concession about my son’s legal authority or our rights under the cohabitation agreement.
Sascha’s neurological conditions can bring relentless burning, electric, and pressure-related pain, disrupted sleep, limited mobility, and deep fatigue. The cats cannot cure those conditions. What they provide is continuous, familiar support that makes the symptoms more bearable.
The goal is designed to secure a suitable Arizona home without mortgage delays and provide a one-year bridge to durable business income.
Immediate housing, legal, family, and cat-care stability while we work toward the permanent solution.
These are planning estimates and will be updated as actual housing and relocation costs become known. We will publish regular totals and use-of-funds updates. Direct gifts are personal gifts and are not represented as tax-deductible.
We have been told to vacate by August 31, 2026, while the home is moved toward sale. We have updated this campaign with the documented timeline and our complete $500,000 plan for a permanent home and one year of stability.