We're losing our home.

I'm on disability and my wife has gone through periods of unemployment, and we couldn't keep up with our property taxes. We tried to file for Chapter 13 in November, but after my wife lost her most recent job, we didn't qualify for that either. We own the house - but even without a mortgage, we're going to lose it to the city. The interest is being compounded daily at 16%, so it's now far more than we can ever hope to pay. Our current options are 1. Raise enough to pay off the taxes and interest. 2. Raise enough to fix the boiler and sell the house to recoup some money, or 3. Raise enough to find us a new place to live and some resources to help cover us until we can get back on our feet.

I'm an artist, and my wife has worked mostly in social work. We've worked a variety of jobs over the years to make ends meet. We’ve still never made more than “paycheck-to-paycheck”. Before he passed, my father-in-law - with every reason to believe she would outlive him - wanted to make sure my mother-in-law would be cared for. We promised she'd move in with us and we'd take care of her. So he bought a house where we'd all be secure.

But, because fate is perverse, she died unexpectedly, and he was diagnosed with dementia. So *he* moved in. For the last three years of his life, I was his primary caregiver. It was always our plan to do the same for my mother. She's always been fiercely independent and has done surprisingly well in independent living - but she's now almost completely blind and is finding that she just can't do it by herself anymore. But just as we were making arrangements for her to come live with us, the city sent notice that they were foreclosing. Without knowing where we'd be living, it suddenly wasn't safe to move Mom.

Our best friend lives with us, having just had knee replacement surgery and decided to recover and rehab with us. It's a nice arrangement, so we hope the three of us can continue to live together elsewhere.

We're both turning 65 this spring and bestie, 68. We raised our two kids here, took in a couple of teens when they had nowhere else to go. Our home - this house - was always packed with kids, and then teens, hanging out, talking, laughing and calling us “Mom and Ima”.

It's going to be painful to leave. And we don't know where we're going to go, or what we're going to do. We have less than two months to either sell it ourselves to pay the back taxes, or let the city foreclose. Two months to sort a lifetime of ours and our kids’ belongings into a dumpster - with no idea where we'll go or how we'll manage it. Before we can even sell it, it needs a boiler - it cracked years ago and we couldn't replace it, so we've lived with just a pellet stove. That means no potential buyer could get a mortgage.

Our hope, in our wildest dreams, would be to raise the full $140k to pay the taxes and keep our home. But we know this is a long shot. However, we are appreciative of any help.