Help a Sick, Broke Labor Reporter Avoid Eviction

By: March 19, 2023

$1,745 / $1,800

Recurring Donation

One Time Donation

Recently, I was hospitalized with complications related to my year-and-half long struggle with Long Covid.

Long Covid has severely weakened my immune system; leading me to get opportunistic infections particularly in the winter.  As a result, I’ve struggled to earn money as a self-employed, crowdfunded labor reporter. 

Now, I am facing an eviction hearing next week on April 4th as I’ve fallen behind by $1,800. Rather than pay my own rent, I paid Payday’s editor, hoping that I could catch up, but have been struggling with health issues. Now, I am facing eviction hearing next week as Payday sits only 9 articles short of publishing 1,000 stories in our 7 year long history. 

Late last month, I learned that due to my struggle with Long Covid that I was eligible for housing assistance funds under the City of Pittsburgh’s Housing Stabilization Fund. Despite presenting all of my material showing that I qualified in late February, I have yet to receive the funds from the city program that has faced criticism for being too slow to help those facing evictions. 

Now, if I can’t come up with $1,800 by the court date on next Tuesday April 4th I will be evicted. 

So, please if you can, donate to help us cover the $1,800 that I need to avoid eviction. 

This spring Payday celebrates its 7th anniversary.  Since Payday’s founding in 2016, we have filed 991 from 29 different states including 26 dispatches from Brazil during the 2022 Presidential election.  Additionally, we have tracked over 2,500 strikes. 

Our work as the first outlet to systematically track the strike wave during the pandemic has been widely recognized by everyone from Washington Post to NPR’s “All Things Considered” to filmmaker Boots Riley.  In 2021, our work helping produce CNN’s United Shades of America was nominated for an Emmy.

Please, donate to help us avoid eviction. If by some miracle, these government funds do come through before the hearing next week on April 4th, the remaining money will be used to fund other labor reporting. Also, if we raise more thane needed, the rest will go to

Donate to help us stay afloat for another 7 years as I struggle to overcome Long Covid. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our 743 recurring donors today.

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter and alumni of the Guardian. In addition to filing nearly 2,000 stories from 46 states, Elk traveled with Lula from Sáo Bernando do Campos all the way to the Oval Office in the White House. Credited by the Washington Post for being the first reporter to track the strike wave systematically, Elk started Payday Report using his NLRB settlement from being illegally fired for union organizing in 2015. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and works frequently in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended college at PUC-Rio. He speaks both Portuguese and Pittsburghese fluently. His email is [email protected]

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