I never imagined I'd be asking strangers for help, but today I don't know where else to turn. After spending nearly twenty years trying to rebuild our lives after Hurricane Katrina, we were finally three days away from moving into a new home on the family land where five generations of my family lived. Then everything fell apart. The loan never funded, the home was never delivered, the savings we'd spent years building were gone, and today we're living in a house we can no longer afford to keep up with.

I'm not asking for help to build my dream home. I'm asking for help because we're running out of options. For years we've patched, repaired, and held this house together with everything we had. Today, the damage to the bathroom, hallway, and one bedroom remains, additional repairs are still needed in the kitchen, and we simply don't have the savings left to make them after losing everything we invested in the home that was supposed to get us out of this situation.

For me, asking for help has been one of the hardest parts of this entire journey. Like so many people, I kept believing that if I just worked harder, saved a little longer, or found one more solution, we could get through this without anyone ever knowing how difficult things had become. But after exhausting every option we could think of, we've reached the point where staying silent won't solve the problem. Sharing our story isn't easy, but it's the only path we have left.

How We Got Here

To understand why we're asking for help today, I have to go back to August of 2005.

When most people hear "Hurricane Katrina," they think about the devastation along the Mississippi Gulf Coast or in New Orleans. We lived nearly 100 miles inland, so we never imagined the storm would change our lives the way it did. But the winds were stronger than anyone expected, and our family home suffered severe roof damage that allowed water to pour inside.

That house wasn't just where we lived. My grandparents built it, my father grew up there, and it's where I was raising my own children. Five generations of my family have called that land home, and at the time, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

Like so many other families, we turned to our insurance company believing they would help us rebuild. Instead, our claim was denied. We suddenly found ourselves in a position we had never expected to be in. We had a home that had been badly damaged, no insurance money to repair it, and nowhere else to go.

So we stayed.

We patched what we could, lived with what we couldn't, and kept hoping we'd eventually find a way to save our home. What Hurricane Katrina damaged in a single day, time slowly took from us over the years that followed. Every new leak, every section of water-damaged wood, and every repair we had to put off because we simply couldn't afford it brought us one step closer to losing the place where my family's story began.

Leaving was never part of the plan, but eventually we reached a point where we could no longer keep up with the repairs. After holding on for years and doing everything we could to make it work, we had no choice but to walk away from the only home we'd ever known.

Starting Over After Katrina

By 2011, we knew we couldn't stay in our family home any longer. The damage had become more than we could realistically repair, so we purchased a foreclosed house that had been sitting vacant for seven years. It wasn't the fresh start we'd dreamed of, but it was one we believed we could rebuild.

We weren't looking for our dream house. We were looking for something we could afford.

The only thing within our budget was a foreclosed house that had been sitting empty for nearly seven years. It needed a tremendous amount of work, but compared to what we were leaving behind, it gave us hope. We emptied our savings, rolled up our sleeves, and spent the next year and a half repairing walls, replacing flooring, painting, and fixing everything we could ourselves. Every paycheck seemed to go right back into that house.

Little by little, it started to feel like we were finally getting our feet back under us. We knew it would never replace the home we had lost, but it was ours, and for the first time in years it felt like maybe life was beginning to settle down.

Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last.

About three years ago, we discovered a water leak that had been quietly causing damage we couldn't see. By the time we found it, the floor in one bedroom, our only bathroom, and the hallway had already sustained damage. Despite doing everything we could to stop the damage and make temporary repairs, the damage remains because we haven't had the resources to complete the repairs.

A year later, we noticed the floor beneath our refrigerator beginning to sink. The work that section of the kitchen needs is beyond what we can currently afford, and we know we'll eventually have to address it. We haven't had running water in our bathroom sink for years because the plumbing had to be disconnected, and every time another part of the house needs repair, we're reminded that we're running out of time.

We've spent years working on this house together because that's what we've always done. We fix what we can, save for the next repair, and keep moving forward. But we've reached a point where patching it together isn't enough anymore. The problems are bigger than what we can solve ourselves, and each new repair seems to uncover another one behind it.

Why This Land Means So Much

People have asked why we've fought so hard to get back to our old family home and the homestead we were forced to leave behind. The answer is simple. It's home.

Long before I was born, my grandfather cut timber from that land to build the house where generations of my family would live. Like so many families in rural Mississippi, they made a life with what they had. My grandparents raised cattle, pigs, and chickens, grew vegetables to feed the family, sold the extra produce when he could, and took on odd jobs to help make ends meet. My grandmother sold eggs every year to pay the property taxes. They didn't have much, but they always found a way to make it work.

By the time I came along, the house had changed some, but it was still home. There was a front porch with wooden columns where our family gathered, birthday parties were celebrated, and stories were shared. There was a Black Jack tree in the front yard with a swing hanging from one of its branches, and three giant oak trees lined the road leading to the house. Those aren't just details I remember—they're part of the picture I still carry in my mind whenever someone asks me where I grew up.

One memory has stayed with me more than any other. Somewhere, there's a photograph of me when I was about four years old. I'm standing in the front yard wearing little brown pants my mom had hand embroidered with flowers, an orange tank top, and holding a plastic rake while pretending to help rake leaves. My hair is blowing in the wind, and behind me is the old green house with its original front porch. I've searched every family photo album I can find hoping that picture will turn up. I'd give just about anything to find it again because, to me, it captures what “home” looked like before everything changed.

There are other pictures taken years later, after my dad remodeled the porch, added siding, and painted the house. Then there are the pictures after Katrina. Today, there isn't a house there at all.

When we prepared the property for the manufactured home, we had to remove what remained of the original house because it had already collapsed. The new home was going to sit in exactly the same place where the old one had stood for generations. I'll never get back the house I grew up in. I know that, and I've finally made peace with it. The people who made it home are gone, and no matter what we build there, it will never look exactly the way it did when I was a little girl standing in the yard with that plastic rake.

For a long time, I thought what I missed was the house. As I've gotten older, I've realized that isn't entirely true. I miss the people who filled it with life. I miss family dinners in my grandmother's kitchen, birthday parties on the front porch, afternoons spent outside until the sun went down, and a time when home simply felt safe. That house represented my past, my childhood, and a huge portion of my life.

I know I can't get any of that back. The house is gone, and so are many of the people who made it home. But the land is still there. Every time I stand on it, I'm reminded that while I can't recreate the past, I can build something new for the future.

That's what this has always been about. Not trying to rebuild the house I lost, but creating a place where my children and, one day, my grandchildren can make memories of their own on the same land that gave me so many of mine.

A Plan That Finally Gave Us Hope

For years, going back to our family land was something we talked about as “someday.” We wanted to believe we would make it home eventually, but it always felt like something far off in the future. Meanwhile, the repairs on the house we were living in had become more than we could realistically keep up with, and eventually we had to stop talking about someday and make a real decision about what came next.

A few months before we began looking at manufactured homes, I drove past the old place for the first time in nearly eight years. I had stayed away because going back was simply too painful. Every visit left me grieving what had been lost, and after a while, I couldn't keep putting myself through it.

When I pulled up that day, the property was almost unrecognizable. The circle driveway that once went around the house had disappeared beneath years of overgrowth and young pine trees. Tires and trash had been dumped on the land by people who had come onto the property without our knowledge. The growth was so thick that I couldn't even see what remained of the house, even though it had stood only about a hundred feet from the road.

I sat on the side of the road and cried for nearly half an hour, thinking the same thing over and over: My home is gone.

I think that was the moment I finally understood that we couldn't keep putting everything off. We'd reached the point where we could no longer keep up with the repairs on our current home, and patching things together was no longer a long-term solution. We had reached a crossroads. We could invest tens of thousands of dollars into a house that continued to need major repairs and commit ourselves to staying there for the rest of our lives, or we could put that same money toward starting over on the land we had always hoped to return to.

Neither option was easy, and we didn't take the decision lightly. More than anything, we needed a place we could build a future. But if we were going to take on another mortgage and invest that much money into our future, we had to ask ourselves where we wanted that future to be.

A manufactured home seemed like the quickest and most practical way to make that happen. It would allow us to stop investing in a house we could no longer keep up with and finally return to the family land we'd hoped to call home again for nearly twenty years.

Before we signed anything, I asked every question I could think of because we couldn't afford to get this wrong. My biggest concern was whether we would have to sell our current home before moving into the new one. That wasn't possible because, despite its condition, it was still the only roof over our heads.

I explained that concern more than once, and each time I was assured it wouldn't be a problem. We were told we could move forward without selling our current home first, and hearing that changed everything. For the first time in years, we stopped talking about “someday.”

We paid the down payment, worked through the design process, and chose the floor plan that was supposed to become our home. While it was being built, we cleared years of overgrowth from the property, prepared the home site, and completed everything we were asked to do so we would be ready when delivery day arrived.

A few days after the clearing and dirt work were finished, we went back to clean up brush and start making plans. We talked about where we might put a shed, where the carport could go, and what the property would look like once we were finally living there. I took a video that day, and when I watch it now, what stands out most is how happy I was. Because for the first time since we were forced to leave our home after Hurricane Katrina, I had hope that I was going to finally get to go home.

It was the first time since we moved away that going back didn't end with me crying. For once, I wasn't standing there grieving the home that was gone. I was looking around and imagining the life we were about to build. For the first time in nearly twenty years, “someday” had become real.

Three Days Before We Were Supposed to Go Home

Three days before our scheduled delivery, my phone rang. I still remember exactly where I was when I answered it because, even now, it's one of those moments I can replay in my mind as though it happened yesterday.

The person on the other end told me the loan wasn't going to fund after all. If we wanted to move forward, we would have to sell our current home first.

I was stunned. From the very beginning, I had explained that selling our current home before moving into the new one wasn't possible. Despite its condition, it was still the only roof over our heads, and that's why I had asked that question over and over before we ever signed a contract. Every time, I had been assured it wouldn't be a problem. We were told we could move forward without selling our home first, and we trusted that information when we made one of the biggest financial decisions of our lives.

Now, everything had changed. The home had already been built. Our family land had been cleared. The homesite was ready, and we had spent months preparing for the day we thought we would finally move home. After all of that, we were being told something completely different than what we had been told from the beginning.

The manufactured home was never delivered. We lost the money we had invested, and the property we had worked so hard to prepare sat empty. We weren't simply back where we had started; we were in a worse position than before because the savings we had planned to use to build our future were gone, and the home we thought would finally take us there never arrived.

Looking back now, I think what hurt the most wasn't just losing the house itself. It was losing the certainty that, after nearly twenty years of waiting, we were finally going home. For a brief moment, "someday" had become real. Then, with a single phone call, it became "maybe" all over again.

I wish I could say we immediately found another solution, but we didn't. Instead, we spent the next several months trying to figure out what options we had left and whether there was any way to salvage the future we had worked so hard to build.

Trying to Find Another Way

After the manufactured home fell through, we weren't ready to give up. Our first instinct wasn't to ask for help—it was to find another solution. We started making phone calls, asking questions, and looking at every option we could think of to see if there was some way to move forward.

One of the first places we turned was our bank. We hoped there might be a way to borrow against our current home so we could make the repairs it desperately needed or recover enough financially to start over. Instead, we learned that wasn't going to be possible. It wasn't the answer we were hoping for, but it forced us to face the reality that our current home could no longer provide a path forward.

We also reached out to family to see if there was any way to bridge the gap. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option either. Like so many families today, everyone has their own financial responsibilities, and no one was in a position to help us with something this significant.

When those options didn't work out, we didn't stop trying. I continued working my full-time job while also taking on a second job, putting every dollar I could toward rebuilding what we'd lost. We've cut expenses where we can, postponed anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, and continued looking for any realistic path that would allow us to solve this on our own.

The problem has never been a lack of willingness to work for what we need. The problem is that the repairs have become more than we can realistically keep up with.

Today, the damage to the bedroom, bathroom, and hallway remains. The repairs to our kitchen floor are still beyond what we can afford, and we still don't have a working bathroom sink. Every month that passes brings another repair we simply can't afford to make. If this were simply a matter of working longer and saving for another year or two, that's exactly what we would do. But after everything we've experienced over the past several years, we honestly don't believe we'll be able to keep up with the repairs for another year or two.

That realization was one of the hardest parts of this entire journey. Asking for help was never part of the plan, and it's not something that comes naturally to either of us. We've always believed in working hard, solving our own problems, and doing everything we could with what we had. That's exactly what we've tried to do every step of the way.

This fundraiser isn't about avoiding the hard work. It's about running out of time. That's ultimately what brought us here.

Where We Are Today

Today, we're still living in the same house we've called home since 2011. We take things one day at a time, but the reality is that we're living in a home that continues to require repairs we simply can't keep up with. It's not the future we imagined for ourselves, but it's the one we're doing our best to navigate until we can find a way forward.

The good news is that we're no longer starting from the beginning. We've been able to save enough for a down payment, and we finally have a realistic path toward returning to our family land. Our goal has never been a large or elaborate home. We simply want a safe, modest place where we can finally return to the family land and begin rebuilding our lives after everything that's happened.

What we're asking for isn't help paying for the home itself. We're asking for help covering the essential expenses that remain before we can finally move home. Those include installing a septic system, connecting utilities, purchasing essential appliances, and adding the storage space we'll need after downsizing from a 2,000-square-foot home that has held more than thirty years of our lives.

Because the new home is much smaller, there simply won't be room for everything we currently own or for a dedicated workspace. I work a full-time job, a second job that I do from home, and I'm currently working toward my PMP certification through online classes. Having a small outbuilding that can serve as both storage and a home office will allow me to continue earning that second income while also giving us a practical place to keep the things that won't fit inside the house. It's not about adding extra space—it's about making a smaller home work for the life we're already living.

Every donation, no matter the size, will go directly toward those remaining costs and help us move one step closer to finally going home after nearly twenty years. We're not asking anyone to buy us a house. We're simply asking for a little help getting us across the finish line after losing the savings we'd spent years setting aside for these final expenses.

If you're not in a position to donate, we completely understand. We know times are difficult for many families, and simply taking the time to read our story means more than you probably realize. If you feel comfortable sharing our fundraiser with others, that kindness alone could help us reach someone who is able to make a difference.

For more than twenty years, we've done everything we knew to do. We survived Hurricane Katrina, rebuilt a neglected foreclosure with our own hands, saved for years to return to our family land, and when that plan fell apart, we kept looking for another way. This fundraiser isn't the beginning of our effort—it's the final piece of a journey that's been decades in the making.

If you choose to be part of that journey, whether through a donation, sharing our story, or simply keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, please know how deeply grateful we are. Your kindness gives us something we've held onto through every setback we've faced: hope.

Our dream has never been to build a perfect house. It's simply been to go home.

To everyone who has taken the time to read our story, shared our story, or donated, thank you. God bless!

If you'd like to learn more about our journey, we've been documenting parts of it on TikTok here: Nikki's Homestead.