This request for help is for my Family & I, they mean the world to me.
Here is our current situation, what led to it and finally what I am hoping to find here.
We are a family of 4 with 2 Maremma Sheep Dogs and 2 Shorthaired cats, we live in a small 3 bedroom apartment in a small mining town in Northern Ontario. Our rent is currently using more than 75% of our current income, this includes water only. The heating (Electric baseboard), electricity, internet and phone are paid by us.
I am permanently disabled (Damaged/Torn back muscles & Multiple Cracked vertebrae) due to slipping on ice which caused a nasty fall, this seriously limits my ability to move and makes extended moving or walking almost impossible.
My wife was a PSW for over 25 years but was forced to leave her job to tend to our children and me. She is now a full time stay at home mother and Care Taker for me. She is the light of my life and has stood by me through everything.
My 2 amazing children are home schooled and love it thank god, we were unable to put them back into Public School at that time due to COVID and me being Immune Compromised. Once that all calmed down and we both had our boosters, we looked into sending them back and honestly we could not afford to send them to school.
Here is a small breakdown of our current month income/outgoings
Income =
ODSP $1998 Per Month
Child Tax Credit $1198.76 Per Month
Rent = $1575
Electricity = $180 Per Month (Averaged)
Internet, Phone, Cell = $200 Per Month
Renters/Pet Insurance = $75 Per Month
Laundry = $60 Per Month (Averaged)
This leaves my family roughly 1000$ a month for food, clothing, personal needs and my medical needs that aren’t covered by ODSP.
We are unable to save money due to unexpected expenses that crop up from time to time and with the increasing costs of living, it is becoming impossible to maintain a healthy living style for my children to grow up in.
I have applied for mortgages a few times for homes that were under 100k and needed small bits of work and been turned down each time due to them feeling that I “Wouldnt be able to maintain the $500 a month Mortgage”. As you can see above, I have no issues with paying my bills nor with budgeting.
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At the start we lived in my home town in Southern Ontario Canada, after my 2 youngest were born we moved into a beautiful 4 bedroom house and were paying well under the rental average cost for it. This allowed my wife and I to start saving for the next obvious step, which is buying our first home together. We told the Home Owner and Property Manager our plans and they were extremely happy to have long term renters.
After being there for almost 3 amazing years the housing market in my home town exploded, we were blindsided as we were told the home was being put on the market within a few months. Only a short three days later, the dreaded “For Sale” sign went up, within 2 weeks they had multiple offers on the home and the Owner accepted the best one.
The sale was set for 2 months later, this put us into quite a bind due to the size of our family. After sending out well over 100+ applications over the next month, we had zero options within the local and neighboring areas, I was then forced to extend our search to all of Ontario.
After sending out another roughly 100+ applications, we had 4 possible rental options further north in Ontario. After viewing the first one and loving it even though it was above our “Comfort Zone” for rent, we told the owner yes we wanted it. The next day, the owner called us and said “Sorry, we were offered more Rent from someone else”. I was flabbergasted that this had happened, I had never heard of a “Bidding War” for Rentals?. I accepted the loss and moved on to the next rental, had literally the same thing happen as above 2 more times!
I started to get depressed and worried that my family was going to be homeless, I tried the last one and had an amazing conversation with the property manager of an apartment building, whom had a small 3 bedroom available. This time things went very smoothly, right down to signing the lease and making the down payment. Only issues were, the Rent was WELL above our comfort zone and the Apartment was 12 hours north from where we were.
Luckily, we had 3 years of savings to assist with the move. So, we managed to book the U-haul moving truck and started to sort out what we could and couldn’t take. Three days before our Move out date, U-haul contacted us saying they could not get us the truck due to COVID and the trucks being stuck in the US due to lock-downs!
Now in a panic, I contacted every local Moving Company and was pretty much laughed at when I tried to book a truck for 3 days later. Finally after trying and failing with multiple companies outside of my home town I managed to find one! Only downside is they knew they had me by the short hairs, I will not name the company due to the fact that without them my family and I would be homeless but they charged over 4 times what U-haul had quoted me. This did not include mileage, insurance or fuel.
At this point, due to paying first and last as a down payment on the new apartment we were broke. My wife’s amazing Uncle was good enough to lend us enough to cover what we didn’t have, so with that hurdle covered we started our journey north without much further incident thankfully.
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Now, I come here as a humbled man looking for help. I do not know what to expect nor truly what to ask for. So, I will shoot for the moon and even if I miss I am still among the stars hopefully.
The best outcome would be to gather enough to buy a home outright, which would be after fees/taxes etc roughly $180,000. Now, I know that is a pipe dream but no harm in putting it forward!
My hopes are to get a minimum of 20% of the down payment for proper home for my family. This would be roughly $20,000 which in our current situation would be impossible to obtain.
The Canadian Gvmt will give 10% of the down payment to us as first time home buyers if we qualify for it but once again, being on ODSP will most likely effect if not outright disqualify me from it but I am unsure and without the other 10% its pointless at this time to try.
I know this was quite the read and if you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read!
I hope you and yours are happy and healthy!
Please stay safe!
Here is my link: https://paypal.me/ScottFamilyFunding?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US