Hi folks, 

I’m really saddened to write this message. I feel absolutely horrible about it but I have decided after a long time thinking about it that I need to put OutKast People Nation on hiatus. I’ve been running this project for over a year. I’m really proud of the support I’ve been able to provide folks and extremely grateful for your donations. Thanks especially to Em for helping me the last few months while I was floundering. 

I started this project when I left Black & Pink National because I saw that they were not prioritizing inside member support and I wanted to do that. I really do believe that what queer incarcerated people need most is community support and care, and the empowerment to do what they need for themselves. I have tried my best to provide some of that through this project, with my work at Black & Pink, and even before that. I will always try to do that in some form. But this project has become unsustainable for me. For more than a year I’ve been the administrator, grantwriter, legal counsel, emotional support worker, and in many cases one of the sole outside contacts for over a dozen incarcerated folks. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to read their messages and to try and support their struggles but they are struggling a lot. I can’t carry that any more. If you read this I am genuinely begging you to write to one of the folks listed here and help take on some of their burdens. I can’t do it any more. 

I have not been doing very well personally these last couple of years and while I don’t want to get into it too much here, I have been struggling to make ends meet financially due to my immigration status which prevents me from getting reliable work. I have been juggling many projects to try to support myself, the vast majority of which do not pay me well or at all (such as this one). At this point I need to prioritize paying work for my own survival. I also have been struggling with my mental health and the intense emotional nature of this work, as well as the guilt of not being able to meet all the members’ needs, has just eaten away at me for months. 

I feel absolutely awful typing this but it’s been several months of me knowing that this project was failing due to my lack of capacity and not knowing what to do about it. It’s time to just be honest. I will be wrapping up the project over the next few weeks. There is a significant amount of funding left over (around $6000), for which I’m really grateful. I will be distributing it to the inside members as fast as my finances and open collective’s reimbursement system allow. Any donations received going forward will also be divided among the members. I have also sent a similar letter to the inside members to this one. 

Thank you again for all the support you have given this project. 

In solidarity, 

Aaron