After Years in Limbo, Finding a Place of Her Own

Abstract

Raegan Sealy, a transplant from Nottingham, England, arrived in New York in August of 2015 on a Fulbright Scholarship in poetry when she was 23. Ms. Sealy, now 30, is a singer-songwriter and writing coach. Over the past seven years, she had never had her own place, until last month when she moved into a large one-bedroom, railroad apartment on the second floor of a tenement building in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, she found on Craigslist. Part of the allure, Ms. Sealy said, was that she already knew the neighborhood. Ms. Sealy had applied that March and was accepted and given a scholarship to their program. "It's so important for artists and writers to have." Though Ms. Sealy had been contributing $1,200 a month, which went toward living and household expenses, by mid-2022 she had saved enough money to move into her own place. "I've never had a separate work-space for a home office that is physically in another location. To sleep in one room and go to another location helps you compartmentalize your life." Most days, Ms. Sealy is home coaching over Zoom, singing and composing and playing her digital piano.