I live in Colombia, a South American country. My mother was scammed out of what essentially was our entire life savings. When we looked more into the guy who scammed her we found out he's one of the most powerful criminals in the country, currently in jail and soon to complete his sentence.
When we went to talk to a lawyer about what could be done he essentially told us that we were better off letting him off because if we took any legal action that in any way could affect or delay him from getting out, the most likely outcome would be that he'd send one of his bandits to murder us or find us and throw acid in the face of my mother.
Despite our situation, bills obviously keep coming, Rent and utilities mostly. My mother is currently unemployed (hence the reason she panicked and was convinced by these criminals to agree to the deal) and my father died from suicide back in 2014, caused by financial stress as we had other issues back then.
Essentially it's just the both of us, and short of a miracle happening, we're most likely going to have to move into a lower-income neighbourhood where violence and crime are massively common and I'm going to have to drop out from school to get any job that will take me (low skilled ones like working at the super market or a call center). Not only that but I work as a part-time freelance graphic designer through the internet, it's not excellent pay but it helps us a tiny bit to get by. Because reliable internet isn't really available in low income neighbourhoods it's likely we would lose that source of income as well.
Once you drop out from school here, it's highly unlikely you'll ever get any job that pays over $500 a month, it's harsh but just the way it is.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that $5000 at this moment would very well be what would make the difference between being able to tough out this hard time, or falling into a multi-generational poverty trap. It would ensure I'm able to continue what I have left of my education and would give us enough of a time window so that we can get back to our feet and sort some things out before we're forced to move