Ricky & Vanessa's Forever Home

Hello…. my name is Dr. Jane Rosen-Grandon.

I want to thank everyone who has donated so far. It means a great deal to me and your contribution goes a long way toward helping two very special people. Vanessa and Ricky have been working on their house for 10 years and still can’t move in. Here’s their story.

In 2013, Vanessa and Ricky, who have been married for 27 years, purchased a home which stands on a ½ acre of rolling grass, surrounded on three sides by woods. It’s quiet, it’s familiar, and these two very fine people cannot wait to move into their dream home.

You may be asking, What’s so special about this house?

This house turns out to be the actual home and property where Ricky and his 8 siblings grew up over 4 decades ago. He remembers the three bedroom house he grew up in where there was “one bedroom for the girls, one bedroom for the boys, and one bedroom for his Momma and Daddy”.

At one time, Ricky’s Grandmother, who lived across the street, owned this house and several surrounding tracts of land, which were sold off though the years. Having lived there from age 6 to 17 years old, Ricky deeply appreciates his family’s history. When Vanessa learned that after many years, the house had come back on the market, she decided to buy the house as a gift to her husband.

But this house has not been easy to restore. What it didn’t have was electricity, running water, a kitchen or a bathroom, and there was no heating or air conditioning system. So, over the past 10 years, Ricky and Vanessa have stretched every dollar and saved each month to buy one window at a time, different bathroom fixtures, flooring, and other pieces of a house, whenever these items went on sale.

You’re probably asking, so what’s the problem?

As Vanessa puts it, they simply don’t have the money to complete the last leg of this project. Both Vanessa and Ricky are disabled, and they literally, just barely get by. Along the way, they’ve had difficulty finding affordable, licensed builders, and they have been ripped off by unscrupulous tradespeople who often took advantage of them.

What’s wrong with where they’re living now?

When this project began, Vanessa and Ricky were living in a rental home that they could afford. Their lives were relatively stable nine years ago and both were in better health at that time. However, in 2015, the couple was forced to move into an apartment complex.

As the result of that move, their rent costs more than doubled, they were faced with security deposits, they had no more privacy, and no peace or quiet. But worst of all, as tenants in a largely white complex, they instantly became the object of racial hatred, verbal violence, and continuous destruction of their property.

Vanessa describes how their cars were vandalized continuously and eventually became undrivable. When they borrowed a car from a friend, their friend’s car was also intentionally damaged. As the result, they now park their car in a nearby church parking lot, which requires them to walk quite a bit further every time they go out or come home.

Each month, their living expenses have gotten higher, and they have had less money left over, putting them further away from their goal than the month before. Every year for the past 8 years, they have vowed to be in their own home before winter, and every year, they have been disappointed by their inability to complete the house for one reason or another. Having witnessed this struggle year by year, I can’t stand it anymore!!!

At the bare minimum, all they need is insulation for the walls and sheetrock. Then they’ll be able to pass their final inspection, which they have already pre-paid.

I am pledging to help raise enough money to complete these final steps, and with a little help from my friends (and even friends I don’t know yet), I know we can get them into their forever home before the end of 2023.

Based on current estimates for what it will take to get their Certificate of Occupancy, we hope to raise $20,000.

If it hurts your heart, like it does mine, to see the reality of poverty, racist violence, and the threat of homelessness, please contribute what you can to “Vanessa and Ricky’s Forever Home”. Please join me in helping them accomplish their dream of getting a good night’s sleep in their very own home.

Thank you so much for joining me in this effort,

Dr. Jane