Home is everything. Everything, to us. With the support of an IDA and careful saving, we have put together a humble downpayment, and the mortgage we qualify for is a little bit more than our current rent, so we’re good on that part. What we need community support for is the up-front administrative costs that go with inspections, earnest, closing and moving. This next step is invigorating and calls upon all our courage to make wise decisions honoring those who have come before and the many generations ahead we hope to nurture forward with flourishing love.

 

Being right on the verge of a dream materializing after seeming so far away for so long is intensely surreal. Just as when waking from a literal dream state - some parts of you still feel immersed in the sleepy pull while your eyes blink and blink again, mind wondering if this is really happening. After logging countless budgeting and homeownership classes, the time to embrace this dream of homeownership, fully awake, is now. Whatever you can contribute - know that we cherish each offering and whether $ or sharing, your part is essential and deeply appreciated in supporting us stepping forward on more settled, solid ground.

 

Even though we believe in and practice community care, I still come to write to you caring that this message doesn’t come across as a “sob story,” but instead as what it is - a deeply empowered next step interrupting a cycle of generational poverty, trauma, systematic tribal division and displacement. A journey of a lot of learning and healing.

 

Standing here in this purpose today, the little girl of my childhood is very present in remembering.

Hard to not tell you - to go on an on - about why this means so much…how this matters as a culminating moment, so I'll just say this: Many of you know that much of my youth was punctuated with frequent moves under the pressure of empty pockets or relationships’ changing fate. A lot of starting over. Packing up and moving in what felt like the blink-of-an-eye as our living situation would have to change remains so vivid for me and inspires me to continue filling in the circle of what my mother started - giving my daughters the stability she didn’t have from the start. As an indigenous woman, I live in my mother’s legacy as a foster care and child abuse survivor. Having said all this, I think this is only the surface of explaining what owning a little house means to my daughters and I. This move means some semblance of stability where roots can relax deeper and deeper into rich groundwork a family can build into a home - a place of our own.

 

Ever grateful, miigwech,

 

Nikia, Delaney and Ettlin