Help Heck Get His House Back

My name is Kathi Heckenlively and the person in the photo is my brother, John (he is much more proficient in social media than I, so some of you may know him- I couldn't find a photo of the house to upload- sorry) The problem is, last Monday (July 26, 2021) the Franklin Dept. of Health deemed our house "uninhabitable" due to water and fire damage from an incident on 07/02/21 when a section of our kitchen caught fire, ruining the stove; the fire department caused further structural damage removing drywall and an electrical outlet and phone jack to see the extent of the damage. While we did receive a small settlement from our insurance, the city insists that our house be thoroughly cleaned, fumigated, and repaired before we allowed to move back in. Their estimate for all of this is $80,000 to $100,000 (the insurance check was only $15.000) and could displace us for over two months. In addition, they confiscated our three pets, which are "in hold" at MADAAC and are accruing daily fees of $75.00 a day (and they've already been there 8 days as of this writing.) My mother Jeanne, who owns the house, has her finances controlled by a court appointed guardian, who informed us that even with the insurance adjustment, we do not have the funds to fix this issue. She proposes selling the house as is and trying to move elsewhere, but where do WE live in the meantime? I am typing this from the public library because I have been living in my car for a week, while my mother has been in the hospital all week and is being moved to a rehabilitation center (until her insurance can't cover it- however long that is) John found a space at the Men's Shelter downtown, but all the ladies' shelters were full, so I couldn't get a space. I have a fixed income paid monthly and a maxed out credit card, so staying in hotels is out. My primary concern is getting my animals back; I can't afford the fees, but I also don't want to pay to surrender them. Using my car to get around is also causing a problem: my mechanic discovered wire damage from mice, and even though the car still runs, I don't know for how long, and his estimate to fix it was $545.00. So here's where we stand-- John is completely broke (he had to move in with us due to the pandemic costing him his apartment), Jeanne's money has to be approved by her lawyer, and I have about $2000.00 in bills, and only about $1100.00 to my name (since I got paid yesterday) Over the last five years of paying bills the lawyers won't pay for my brother or me, I've also accrued $17,000 in debt on my credit card. Another snag-- EVERYTHING (the car, the house, the dog's licenses, the phone bills, the cable bill) are either in my father's or mother's name, so nobody will talk to me or give me authority to do anything to fix this. Even if I did have the funds to pay the animal shelter, they wouldn't release the pets to me without my mother present, and the health department won't release the dogs until I have a residence in place or the existing home is cleaned thoroughly. Every attempt to get help seems to fail, and I am having anxiety attacks due to stress, poor eating, and fatigue from driving. I can only pray people take pity on our situation.