Coins for Ken

As many of you may have learned, our friend, Ken Souza, was one of the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Ken moved to Houston 20 years ago after Compaq Computer acquired Digital Equipment, his employer at the time. He has since worked for several other tech companies and has been between Boston and Houston over the past 17 years. About 10 years ago he sold everything in New England and moved lock, stock and barrel to Houston to be with his kids. Unfortunately, Ken has been unemployed and semi-retired for the past 18-months living off his savings. Ken also paid off a big piece of his mortgage to reduce his monthly expenses, thus depleting much of his savings. Now along comes Harvey, the worst flooding storm in the history of the US, and wipes him out. The damage to his house is massive; 50 years of everything one holds dear gone in a matter of hours. As you can see in the photos, the water was over 4-feet high on his first floor. Patti and one of their dogs had to be rescued by airboat by the Dallas National Guard and was captured on TV by CNN reporters. Engineers have given him estimates of over $250,000 to repair the structural damage to his home and that does not include replacing furniture, carpeting and appliances, which were all lost and not covered by insurance. In addition, Ken’s family vehicles were also considered a total loss. FEMA will only cover $30K-$40K maximum for his loss. And, in an almost perfect storm, Catch-22 scenario, banks are telling him that they require a complete rebuild of all damages before they will consider a home equity loan! You can see that Ken is in a horrible predicament.

To that end, we are setting up this Go Fund Me page to help Ken and his family gets back on their feet. Like many of us, I’m sure you have already contributed to help Harvey victims. But this request is a personal plea for a friend that needs your support. Any amount you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Frank Callahan & Steven Graziano