A New Home for the French Family
Donation protected
*I have increased the goal. If we get the place we are looking at we will need to pay off our electric bill (electricity included) and pay for plowing.
Any donations past our goal will go towards the credit cards, our score took a hit when I had to stop paying them to save to move.
We have an eviction notice, the lanlord wants to renovate.
We need $1700 to move, but the vacancy rate is well below 1%. I assume I will need to put our stuff in storage and sleep in the car or couch surf for a while. So I set the Go Fund Me at $3,000.
I love the town I live in, Peterborough. They say it’s a great place to live. It has wonderful schools, an adorable downtown, and just the right blend of urban conveniences and rural beauty. I love my state, New Hampshire, full of forests and smelling of pine.
My family was middle class, what seems like forever ago. I was a stay-at-home mom. My husband became disabled and our home in New Hampshire was foreclosed on in 2007. We bounced around after that. Moving across the country to visit my husband’s father, who was ill. We moved many times, several times homeless, always trying to get closer to my family in New Hampshire.
In 2013 I finally managed to get us back to New Hampshire, renting a house in Rindge. We were there a couple years, and then on December 23 I had a deputy on my front porch, handing me an eviction notice. The bank had foreclosed on the owner and the developers who bought it wanted us out. We had paid our rent, we kept the house nice, we didn’t do anything. But we needed to leave.
We lived in a friend’s house, we stayed with Shelter from the Storm. We had four kids at home, and cats, and no credit. We had the money to move in. But we couldn’t find a place. Almost a year later, in 2015, we found a landlord who would take us.
We were renting half of a big old house. It was old and creaky and beautiful. I loved being able to walk into town, to go to the library or peek in the shop windows.
I stopped making friends when we were foreclosed on. I had to say goodbye to my friends and family when we moved across country. Even after moving back, what’s the point in getting close, when I will have to grieve them the next time I move? Five moves later, I was still as disconnected. But when we moved to Peterborough, something changed. Peterborough managed to crack my shell. I made friends. I invested my time and effort in my community.
I’ve built a community for myself and my family in this little town. I have a support network, for the first time in about 10 years. I let my roots wiggle down into the soil, and for the first time in a long time I had the space to try to make life better for my family.
I’ve been working to improve our circumstances. I am now 60 credits into a bachelor’s degree. In order to start school I cut my volunteer work, and cut back on freelance clients. I had to carve time for school somehow, but that means that we had to tighten our belts.
Now all this is in jeopardy again. We have an eviction notice, the owner wants to renovate so he can sell. He gave us a generous move-out date. But all I have saved is the stimulus check we received. Which is not enough to move.
I can’t afford to rent anything in New Hampshire. According to the New Hampshire Housing and Finance Authority, the median rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in Hillsborough County in 2019 was $1,456. The vacancy rate in Hillsborough County for 2019 was 1%. These numbers have not improved since the pandemic hit, in fact it’s much worse.
I was on the board for the transitional shelter, and now I need to call them.
I can't start another class. I don’t know where I’ll be. Or if I’ll have internet. Or power. We were stretched thin before COVID happened. I plan to start school full time in the fall, to get my bachelor’s in business administration with a focus in nonprofit management. While still working and raising my kids. How will I manage that, with no support network, in some other town? I feel more like a tumbleweed than a sapling.
You may have seen me walking around town, or hiking. You may have seen my son bussing tables at the diner. You may have seen me at the writers’ group meetings. You may have seen my daughter selling cookies at the grocery store. You may have seen me at the local transitional housing shelter’s tree lighting. You may have seen my child perform in the local youth choir. You may have seen me at the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week community dinner, or seen the window display I worked on in the stationery store.
You may not see us anymore.
Cash App: mdliscat
Venmo: @Melissa-French-38
Paypal: paypal.me/MFrenchLiscat
We need $1700 to move, but the vacancy rate is well below 1%. I assume I will need to put our stuff in storage and sleep in the car or couch surf for a while. So I set the Go Fund Me at $3,000.
I love the town I live in, Peterborough. They say it’s a great place to live. It has wonderful schools, an adorable downtown, and just the right blend of urban conveniences and rural beauty. I love my state, New Hampshire, full of forests and smelling of pine.
My family was middle class, what seems like forever ago. I was a stay-at-home mom. My husband became disabled and our home in New Hampshire was foreclosed on in 2007. We bounced around after that. Moving across the country to visit my husband’s father, who was ill. We moved many times, several times homeless, always trying to get closer to my family in New Hampshire.
In 2013 I finally managed to get us back to New Hampshire, renting a house in Rindge. We were there a couple years, and then on December 23 I had a deputy on my front porch, handing me an eviction notice. The bank had foreclosed on the owner and the developers who bought it wanted us out. We had paid our rent, we kept the house nice, we didn’t do anything. But we needed to leave.
We lived in a friend’s house, we stayed with Shelter from the Storm. We had four kids at home, and cats, and no credit. We had the money to move in. But we couldn’t find a place. Almost a year later, in 2015, we found a landlord who would take us.
We were renting half of a big old house. It was old and creaky and beautiful. I loved being able to walk into town, to go to the library or peek in the shop windows.
I stopped making friends when we were foreclosed on. I had to say goodbye to my friends and family when we moved across country. Even after moving back, what’s the point in getting close, when I will have to grieve them the next time I move? Five moves later, I was still as disconnected. But when we moved to Peterborough, something changed. Peterborough managed to crack my shell. I made friends. I invested my time and effort in my community.
I’ve built a community for myself and my family in this little town. I have a support network, for the first time in about 10 years. I let my roots wiggle down into the soil, and for the first time in a long time I had the space to try to make life better for my family.
I’ve been working to improve our circumstances. I am now 60 credits into a bachelor’s degree. In order to start school I cut my volunteer work, and cut back on freelance clients. I had to carve time for school somehow, but that means that we had to tighten our belts.
Now all this is in jeopardy again. We have an eviction notice, the owner wants to renovate so he can sell. He gave us a generous move-out date. But all I have saved is the stimulus check we received. Which is not enough to move.
I can’t afford to rent anything in New Hampshire. According to the New Hampshire Housing and Finance Authority, the median rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in Hillsborough County in 2019 was $1,456. The vacancy rate in Hillsborough County for 2019 was 1%. These numbers have not improved since the pandemic hit, in fact it’s much worse.
I was on the board for the transitional shelter, and now I need to call them.
I can't start another class. I don’t know where I’ll be. Or if I’ll have internet. Or power. We were stretched thin before COVID happened. I plan to start school full time in the fall, to get my bachelor’s in business administration with a focus in nonprofit management. While still working and raising my kids. How will I manage that, with no support network, in some other town? I feel more like a tumbleweed than a sapling.
You may have seen me walking around town, or hiking. You may have seen my son bussing tables at the diner. You may have seen me at the writers’ group meetings. You may have seen my daughter selling cookies at the grocery store. You may have seen me at the local transitional housing shelter’s tree lighting. You may have seen my child perform in the local youth choir. You may have seen me at the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week community dinner, or seen the window display I worked on in the stationery store.
You may not see us anymore.
Cash App: mdliscat
Venmo: @Melissa-French-38
Paypal: paypal.me/MFrenchLiscat
Organizer
Melissa French
Organizer
Peterborough, NH
