Help us save our home
Donation protected
The wonderful home mentioned further below is at risk of being taken away from us. We need help to keep it. The person we purchased it from leased the land to us for a cheap monthly rate. We agreed on a six month lease, and would go month to month after that, because he wasn't sure if his wife wanted to keep the land or sell it. Earlier this year we started getting crazy phone calls from him accusing us of being months behind on rent (we weren't) and threats about him kicking us off so he could sell it. We said we were interested and he named a price that was four times what the land was actually worth. We decided it was time to pursue other options. We spent the summer in talks with city officials about moving it next door onto property owned by my father in law. Ultimately that option was refused us. What little money we had saved went toward making repairs to our air conditioning and huge electric bill from having to use window units until the central air was fixed. Then we got hit by an eviction last week. We were given 24 hours to remove our trailer from the property. That time expired on Friday September 1st at 3pm. We are currently literally living on borrowed time. We filed an appeal that won't be looked at until at least Tuesday the 6th, and who knows if it will be granted. I have three dollars in my bank account. I get paid on that same Tuesday but that won't even be half the money we need to move the trailer and pay deposits on wherever we find to park it. This is an absolute emergency. If we can't get it moved before the marshal comes out, it will be towed ungently to an impound yard and we will have to pay daily storage fees in order to get it out. This is our home. It's all we have. We need help, immediately.
Any and all help is appreciated. Blessed be.
*edited* For those of you not familiar with our situation, I'll give a longer, detailed explanation.
We married on Halloween 2011. On August 1, 2011, he slipped and injured himself at his job. His employer refused to pay him workers compensation although they did allow him to seek medical attention. His doctor ordered him home on bed rest while healing, and could not understand why he wasn't healing. His doctor kept requesting an MRI and his company refused to pay for anything other than x-ray. My husband did have multiple fractures in his foot, but even after they healed he still had incredible pain and issues with walking. We retained the services of a lawyer, and he finally got his MRI, but by this point, the company had gotten to the doctor, and he refused to treat my husband further. He refused to look at the MRI and told my husband if there was any damage there, it was old and recently aggravated by his fall. His company fired him for retaining legal representation outside of his union. His union agents never returned his calls or even acknowledged when face to face with him before he was terminated, that they knew anything about his case.
I was self employed, and when we lost his income, we lost the ability to pay for housing. My business had become little more than a self-sufficient hobby; there was no money left over at the end of the month to support myself, it barely supported itself. We made the decision to move to LA, where my husband had family we could stay with and a better job market. The summer of 2012 we packed up everything we could take with us and left behind in storage what we would reclaim when we had housing of our own, and moved to LA. I found work as a traveling sales rep almost immediately, but it wasn't regular money. It was great when it was there, though. Because I had what most companies considered a huge gap in employment, they were hesitant to hire me. I had been self-employed, working in the family business, for the better part of my adult life (over a decade). I was 31, a newlywed, living on a couch in my in-law's office. We traveled back to MS once a month to meet with our attorney. After some disagreements with my in-laws, we moved in with a friend and slept on his couch for 6 months. During this time, I found work, and through my company was able to secure the money needed to sign a lease on an apartment. We stayed there for two years. During this time, I went from part time flunky to part time supervisor, to full time supervisor. In the summer of 2013, our attorney advised us to accept a settlement, and get on with our lives. We were no closer to a court date and they kept changing out attorneys and starting the whole process over. We got a $5000 settlement, of which our attorney took $1500. We paid a few bills and started the disability claim process. He was dismissed three times before they finally agreed to let him actually meet with a physician for examination, who told him he was fat, too young to be claiming disibility (he was 28 when he fell, he is 33 now) and if he lost 200lbs he would get better. If he lost 200lbs he would die of starvation. So the appeals wheel continued to turn.
In May of 2015, I discovered I was pregnant. I'm 34, and have had a few miscarriages. I wanted to ensure things were safe before I told my husband. By Father's day, I would have been almost at the end of my first trimestre, by my calculations, so I decided to surprise him then. However, we had been struggling to pay for our apartment on just my income alone, and we got evicted. During the move out, which was over a single weekend, I lost the baby. We lived in a hotel for a week before we were able to secure housing, which was a mircle in and of itself- the inlaws I had struggled with when we first moved down here, had a neighbor who was looking to sell a trailer. It had been empty for a few years and needed a lot of TLC, but we got it for a song, and with a few weeks of elbow grease and a few coats of paint, it was good as new, and home.
With so much happening at one time, I became numb, and went through life on autopilot. When it became clear that all the turmoil was over, we really did have a home of our own that we could afford, we could paint, we could hang photos on the wall, and no neighbors fighting and screaming and car doors slamming all hours of the day or night, I finally began to relax, and the grief hit. I was overwhelmed. I made two stupid mistakes at work. After the first, which was so incredibly out of character for me, one of my managers sat down and asked "What's up?" That set the floodgates loose, and I told him everything that had happened in the last month and a half. They knew I'd had a housing crisis, and they did a fundraiser for me. I was promised a company match to what my coworkers raised, but never got it. However, the little money almost covered what we spent on the hotel, so we were thankful to have it. After our talk, my manager said he would get my workload temporarily reduced, so I could focus more on what I needed to do and get myself back together. That never happened. I remained tired and weak, and extremely sensitive to heat. One morning I almost passed out while doing my pre-opening tasks, and I made a purchase of something to help me recover. I neglected to remove what proved I was an employee when making the purchase. I was fired a week later for that indescretion, for "acting without integrity." Instead of using something I didn't pay for, or falling out in the floor, I decided to act with integrity and purchase said item. I didn't want to get fired for stealing.
I never got the promised money from the company, I never even got an expression of compassion, and they coded my termination to the point I was unable to receive unemployment benefits. I don't know how we've managed to make it up to this point, other than I have an army of guardian angels working around the clock to ensure we survive.
**********
For the last year we've been struggling to survive on what I make at my part time work. We make it, but there's nothing left over. The ironic thing is we went to a disability benefit hearing for my husband the day they served us with papers. We've not gotten the guarantee but the meeting went well.
Any and all help is appreciated. Blessed be.
*edited* For those of you not familiar with our situation, I'll give a longer, detailed explanation.
We married on Halloween 2011. On August 1, 2011, he slipped and injured himself at his job. His employer refused to pay him workers compensation although they did allow him to seek medical attention. His doctor ordered him home on bed rest while healing, and could not understand why he wasn't healing. His doctor kept requesting an MRI and his company refused to pay for anything other than x-ray. My husband did have multiple fractures in his foot, but even after they healed he still had incredible pain and issues with walking. We retained the services of a lawyer, and he finally got his MRI, but by this point, the company had gotten to the doctor, and he refused to treat my husband further. He refused to look at the MRI and told my husband if there was any damage there, it was old and recently aggravated by his fall. His company fired him for retaining legal representation outside of his union. His union agents never returned his calls or even acknowledged when face to face with him before he was terminated, that they knew anything about his case.
I was self employed, and when we lost his income, we lost the ability to pay for housing. My business had become little more than a self-sufficient hobby; there was no money left over at the end of the month to support myself, it barely supported itself. We made the decision to move to LA, where my husband had family we could stay with and a better job market. The summer of 2012 we packed up everything we could take with us and left behind in storage what we would reclaim when we had housing of our own, and moved to LA. I found work as a traveling sales rep almost immediately, but it wasn't regular money. It was great when it was there, though. Because I had what most companies considered a huge gap in employment, they were hesitant to hire me. I had been self-employed, working in the family business, for the better part of my adult life (over a decade). I was 31, a newlywed, living on a couch in my in-law's office. We traveled back to MS once a month to meet with our attorney. After some disagreements with my in-laws, we moved in with a friend and slept on his couch for 6 months. During this time, I found work, and through my company was able to secure the money needed to sign a lease on an apartment. We stayed there for two years. During this time, I went from part time flunky to part time supervisor, to full time supervisor. In the summer of 2013, our attorney advised us to accept a settlement, and get on with our lives. We were no closer to a court date and they kept changing out attorneys and starting the whole process over. We got a $5000 settlement, of which our attorney took $1500. We paid a few bills and started the disability claim process. He was dismissed three times before they finally agreed to let him actually meet with a physician for examination, who told him he was fat, too young to be claiming disibility (he was 28 when he fell, he is 33 now) and if he lost 200lbs he would get better. If he lost 200lbs he would die of starvation. So the appeals wheel continued to turn.
In May of 2015, I discovered I was pregnant. I'm 34, and have had a few miscarriages. I wanted to ensure things were safe before I told my husband. By Father's day, I would have been almost at the end of my first trimestre, by my calculations, so I decided to surprise him then. However, we had been struggling to pay for our apartment on just my income alone, and we got evicted. During the move out, which was over a single weekend, I lost the baby. We lived in a hotel for a week before we were able to secure housing, which was a mircle in and of itself- the inlaws I had struggled with when we first moved down here, had a neighbor who was looking to sell a trailer. It had been empty for a few years and needed a lot of TLC, but we got it for a song, and with a few weeks of elbow grease and a few coats of paint, it was good as new, and home.
With so much happening at one time, I became numb, and went through life on autopilot. When it became clear that all the turmoil was over, we really did have a home of our own that we could afford, we could paint, we could hang photos on the wall, and no neighbors fighting and screaming and car doors slamming all hours of the day or night, I finally began to relax, and the grief hit. I was overwhelmed. I made two stupid mistakes at work. After the first, which was so incredibly out of character for me, one of my managers sat down and asked "What's up?" That set the floodgates loose, and I told him everything that had happened in the last month and a half. They knew I'd had a housing crisis, and they did a fundraiser for me. I was promised a company match to what my coworkers raised, but never got it. However, the little money almost covered what we spent on the hotel, so we were thankful to have it. After our talk, my manager said he would get my workload temporarily reduced, so I could focus more on what I needed to do and get myself back together. That never happened. I remained tired and weak, and extremely sensitive to heat. One morning I almost passed out while doing my pre-opening tasks, and I made a purchase of something to help me recover. I neglected to remove what proved I was an employee when making the purchase. I was fired a week later for that indescretion, for "acting without integrity." Instead of using something I didn't pay for, or falling out in the floor, I decided to act with integrity and purchase said item. I didn't want to get fired for stealing.
I never got the promised money from the company, I never even got an expression of compassion, and they coded my termination to the point I was unable to receive unemployment benefits. I don't know how we've managed to make it up to this point, other than I have an army of guardian angels working around the clock to ensure we survive.
**********
For the last year we've been struggling to survive on what I make at my part time work. We make it, but there's nothing left over. The ironic thing is we went to a disability benefit hearing for my husband the day they served us with papers. We've not gotten the guarantee but the meeting went well.
Organizer
Lani Elizabeth Easley
Organizer
Slidell, LA
