Funding or Friends

I am an international student. To continue my PhD program, I need to find the support. Sometimes it is not easy to find the support, even my advisor can not guarantee. A friend of mine had promised to me and my advisor that he could find the money to give me support. In order to get support from my friend's company, we worked out a cooperation project. Everything looked good when the project was submitted to the research board of the company. But since then, I got no response. My friend was the leader in charge the whole research group. I contacted him several times. There were different excuses he gave me, like the budget shrinking or money re-distribution. I understand that as a leader, it is hard to maintain the balance of budget. So I can accept the excuse if the budget of the year is not enough to push our project. But, it has been two years. I can not wait here and do nothing. I asked him the last time about the possibility of getting the support this year. Rather than sit and wait, I want to know exactly if the project can be approved. Just tell me "No" then I can find the way to survive for the rest of my PhD life. I don't want to waste my time on the unknown support.

Though I has been a TA for three quarters in a row...