Dear Donor,

My husband and I would first thank you for taking the time to read this and donating. We are asking for your help to achieve home ownership as at this time we can’t do it on our own. We have been trying to do everything necessary to be in a good position to achieve our dream of homeownership, but like Murphy’s law when something’s go wrong, it really goes wrong. We started the process by the end of 2020. We did the normal things such as pulling our credit reports, checked our finances with a professional to have an overall idea of our spending and where to cut back, and created a plan to improve our credit scores, save money and payoff credit cards. We both had relatively good jobs and thought that would be the next step for us. In 2021, I even started a small business which gave us extra income to achieve our goal faster. Everything was going well, until September of 2021. First, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. The news alone was devastating but the worst part is that he lives overseas, and his insurance would not cover the treatment. The majority of my family that lives overseas and many communicated that they could not help with the treatment costs. My parents were already retired and living on a limited income, so after discussing it with my husband, we used the money we had saved to pay for the cost of the treatment. Then my grandmother fell down and broke her hip for which again we helped with hospital costs not covered by the insurance. Honestly I would do it again as they are my grandparents and it was the right thing to do. By November of 2021 my husband and I got COVID. It was full blown COVID and we spent about a month and a half out of work. Thank goodness that we had vacation time accumulated as both being so sick, we couldn’t work. So we had to used our credit cards just for a couple of weeks.When we finally were cleared in late December, my husband came back to work to a hostile environment. Apparently his boss was reprimanded because despite having four other people in the department, their work fell behind because my husband was out sick. It came to light that my husband completed at least 70% of the department’s workload. His boss started to add more work, impossible deadlines and made his work life a living hell. The situation went off for months even after involving HR. My husband was at the brink of insanity. My breaking point was when during a dental appointment, our dentist stated that my husband has grinded his teeth within a couple of months so severely that they would need to do crowns on all of his teeth costing $30k, which of course our dental insurance didn’t cover. I was so afraid on my husband’s mental state that I told him to quit his job. My salary alone could cover the main bills and with the extra income from my business, it would have been ok. We did some readjustments to our plan and knew we had to push back our goal a bit. We agreed that he would help me with the business instead of going for another job as I was not able to handle all myself to give him time to mentally recuperate. He agreed after one of our furry babies got sick and even after all the money we paid for treatment, we had to put her to sleep.
For three months after my husband quit his job, we did well. During those first three months, I also got a job offer for the same position with another company but of course better salary so I accepted it.  We felt that we were going to go back on track until one day, a person that used to be our friend asked me to borrow my car to visit her grandmother who was sick. This person said that her car was being repaired and offer to pay me some money for allowing her to use my car. I had started to work remotely for my new job so I didn’t see the harm. I had already taken my vehicle for service a couple of weeks prior and everything was in top shape so I agreed. She was late in returning my vehicle and when she did, I had to go an pick it up with a tow truck at her house. When I took the vehicle to the dealership, I was told that the transmission had gone bad and had to be replaced. I was besides myself when I heard that as my vehicle which I had purchased brand new five years prior was in excellent condition. Plus, I had my vehicle appraised close to $12k right after the last service (my husband and I were thinking of paying off the balance of $3k with some extra money that was going to come in and sell the car to use the money as a down payment). We didn’t have the money to do the repairs, the warranty had lapsed a month prior and a vehicle that I still owed money on was basically worthless. I was offered $500 to junk it. The so called friend refused to pay for the repairs as the mechanic indicated that he could not say for sure if this person did anything to it because my car has a cvt transmission and they just go bad. The dealership where I purchased and serviced my car would not pay for the repairs either. We looked for lawyers and no one wanted to take the case. So I paid off the vehicle, and after a lot of debate decided to do the repairs. I decided to take my vehicle to a reputable transmission shop. I was quoted $5,400 for part, labor and taxes. On top of that since my car is small, a new transmission is hard to come by. So I was set up with a company that would  allow me to make monthly payments. I reviewed the contract and signed it. After making payments for a couple of months, I requested a statement because the company had failed to provide one and I was having issues logging into their website. When I got the statement, I was in shock. This company was charging me $12k between the cost of repairs, interest and taxes. Their contract did not mention the interest as because the contract was considered a rent to own one, it didn’t have to list it.I fought this company until they agreed to settle. However, I ended up paying them $7k. After that it has been a series of events that kept pushing our goal far away. The last part that happened which it is the reason why I come to you for help is that our building was sold to a new owner. The new owner has now indicated that by January 1, our rent is going to increase to almost twice of what we pay now, and to be quite honest the apartment is not worth. It is a studio with approximately 400 sqft. We have been approved for a mortgage but what we lack is the down payment. Unfortunately we won’t have enough time to raise the money ourselves. If we can raise up to $20,000, it would help us tremendously.  We have no one else to turn to. Thank you again for reading this and for your contributions to achieve one of our dreams. You can send it via cashapp $ranOBBB1. Again thank you.