Hello, my name is Heather and I’m here to do something I’ve never allowed myself to do before. I am begging for money.
My spouse, 2 children, 3 pets and myself recently found ourselves suddenly homeless when a basement wall in my home imploded. I live in Missouri, and recently we have had torrential rain and flash flooding. My home was my Memaw and Papaw’s(grandparents) house and was built in 1901. The basement wall was cinder brick. We have clay for dirt in Missouri, it doesn’t absorb a lot of water. So all this pressure built up behind the wall and at 2:15 am on June 26th, 2021 there was a loud BOOM and the house shook. I ran downstairs and saw the wall all over the floor and earth pouring in from outside. It had thankfully missed the gas line by about half a foot, but had indeed hit a main water pipe. I was home alone with my kids and animals. I frantically called my spouse at work and told him to high tail it home FAST. My parent’s recently lost their car so I was letting my father borrow mine for the night because he had a heart doctor appointment in the morning. So I had to call him, also frantically cause I mean, come on, to bring me my vehicle and that I needed to evacuate my children and animals ASAP.
THANKFULLY my parent’s have a house, so we were able to come here. We are currently all staying in their basement/my dad’s mancave/bar. My spouse and I are sleeping between a pool table and a stripper pole. My eldest is 17 and trans, and youngest is 8 and autistic, they are both currently sharing the only room with carpet that isn’t painted black and doesn’t look like a discotheque. We have two dogs and a cat. The cat was allowed in the basement, but the dogs, who have always lived inside, are outside. One dog, Gizmo, is tiny. The other dog, Castiel, is a half black lab, half pit bull and all big baby.
The house has been deemed a hazard and we will never be able to live there again, which shatters my heart because it was my grandparent’s home. My little family and I moved into the house 12 years ago. I had had a apartment fire where I lived, and had to move in with my parents. Two weeks after that my parent’s got a foreclosure notification to vacate their home because my Dad had broken his pelvic at his job and could not work. So we did what we could to make the house we just lost decent fast for my parents and my spouse, eldest child and I to live in. I was the only one working at the time, my spouse had just come home with a broken arm from his second tour in Iraq and then the fire happened. We moved into our long term home 3 days before Christmas.
I had poured every dime into the place to make it decent to live in because it had been left empty for 4 years. My spouse and I had to pay $6,000 in back taxes that no one in the family had bothered to pay to keep it off the auction house steps. My spouse and I tried repeatedly to get the house in our name to take out a loan to fix it proper, the family bickered and denied us again and again. We couldn’t get a bank to give us a loan to fix a house that wasn’t ours. It was a stalemate.
We fixed what we could as we could, but it wasn’t anything major, because we also help take care of my parent’s financially because they’ve hit rough times in the past 10 years. We were never able to save up to move or anything.
The DREAM? A forever home for my children. A place where they feel safe and that can’t be taken away from them. A place where I could possibly watch grandkids(if either kids want to have kids of their own) play and grow, and if I’m VERY lucky, to watch my great grandkids play and grow. A place where I can have my children’s and my furbabies. It’s about impossible to find a 3 bedroom rental in my town that allows pets, much less our big dog and not cost a arm and a leg every month.
My spouse is the only one working at this time. When Covid hit, suddenly the kids were home all day, everyday. A adult was needed, I wasn’t going to make my eldest, who was already having a hard time mentally with stuff, be a secondary parent to my autistic child who was having issues from his whole structured routine not only being broken, but thrown out the window. So I stayed home and became Mrs. Mom. Teacher, Para, Speech Therapist, Janitor, Lunch Lady, Principal, and Counselor. And we continued with that for this past school year as well. I have virtual schooled both my kids for the past year and a half. So money is low. The past year I have had many health issues arise. I have interstitial cystitis, aka, painful bladder syndrome. I also have NAFLD (non alcoholic fatty liver disease). Along with back issues and reoccurring migraines. So even when I CAN get back to work, I’m not sure how much I’ll physically be able to do.
I’m attempting to get enough for a down payment for a home. If you can and desire to help me, PLEASE DO. I am grateful to any who donate or even read all this. Thank you and have a wonderful day/night.
-Heather