Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays?

My buddy Travis in Vancouver needs help. But I have no idea how to reach him. Seems not to access his Facebook profile anymore. Supposedly he lives on the streets.

Me, they put for a month into solitary confinement under 24/7 video surveillance when I demanded to speak to the US embassy, since they did not believe me that I am a US citizen.

Ever since I was unceremoneously kicked out of my parents' house after graduating from HS I've lived in a student dorm, now sharing a flat with a friend splitting rent. Been somewhat "cruising along" financially in the sense that I gained roughly enough to pay my monthly expenses with not much wiggle room. Had to go a bit into debt to fund moving into the dorm initially and never exactly recovered from that debt, just hovering with nothing really changing.

Recently lost access to my student loan as I am too slow to study for their requirements but I've managed to offset that by working as sysadmin/tech support at a small uni lab. My main sources of income being this job, "child benefits", and a half-orphan pension (lost my mom to alcohol when I was 15, dad remarried later). This half-orphan pension now _also_ fell off until I have the paperwork handled to re-request it after they asked me for proof that I've been studying two years ago, which I sent in too late. This pension also covered healthcare automatically.

Now with my pension out of the picture until they process it I have been thrown into the regular healthcare system, which added a monthly expense that I was not prepared for, especially because they are also requesting that I retroactively pay up for 3 months of apparently missed contributions/fees. Sent them an email a few days ago asking if it was possible to pay this off in monthly rates to hopefully make it a bit more manageable, but they have a very archaic policy of not responding to emails and only sending out paper mail. I also tried calling but the person I talked to wasn't exactly helpful outside of "have you tried sending an email". I am honestly at a bit of a loss as to how to approach this.

There were some pipe dreams of finding more work but the job market is, excuse the expression, fucked. Nobody would employ a student who hasn't finished their bachelor's yet. I'll probably try to find a job at some fastfood place or grocery store next and put my studies on pause. This might bite me back later because of credit point requirements from my course but still better than having debt collectors on my ass.

I understand that this is all over the place. It would mean the world to me if someone could even find the time to chime in and give some advice.

I'm contemplating getting a diesel generator, to share amongst them and their neighbours, but it's less than ideal as the generator has to be outside (for ventilation) and their apartment block doesn't have balconies.