My name is George and I teach math at Jefferson Community & Technical College. My partner and I bought our first house together just over two years ago. We were so excited and happy. Then, in 2022, I was diagnosed with cancer, and just before I started my treatment, I caught COVID. This double whammy tore me up mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. For a while, after the cancer diagnosis and during treatment, bills were tight, but doable. I saw that a lot of people were getting some assistance from COVID, so I applied for some assistance in the form of a forbearance on my mortgage.

We were granted a forbearance, but here is where I messed up. I thought they gave us a one-year forbearance. I knew it would make us pay more later, but I also knew we could then focus on recovery, paying some medical bills, and making the house better. I later found out that they had only granted us a six-month forbearance. I didn’t notice this detail, as I was trying to keep up with my teaching and work emails from both students and others at the school - I didn’t take any time off work during my cancer treatment. Once we had gone without paying for 10 months, I saw an email that said what we owed in back/overdue mortgage payments.

At that time, we owed more than $12,000 on mortgage payments and fees. We immediately started working towards paying that down. We stopped going to restaurants and fast food, cut back on everything at home, and eliminated unnecessary media services, etc. While working as a full-time faculty member at the college, I took on extra tutoring, and I got a part-time job for overnight work. We are both working so hard, her having a full-time job in the healthcare system, and me having the two jobs, to cover all of our bills and regular mortgage payments. We have gotten our debt down some in the last couple of months, but we just got a letter from the mortgage company on Wednesday.

They told us that if we don’t pay the remaining $8,672.23 by Saturday, December 2nd, they will start foreclosure. I don’t want to lose our home. Once I realized that I made a mistake, I quickly worked to try to make it up. We just cannot, on our own, cover the rest in that short of time. Neither of us come from money, and we’ve put all of our savings towards paying this debt.

If anyone has it in their heart and is able to help us, it would be greatly appreciated. I picked up more hours at my second job, but this extra work will wear me out while also not giving us enough money right now to save our home. We are trying to raise $8,700 so that we can pay the immediate demand. If you are able to help, we need to send the mortgage company the backpay by Friday, December 1st.

We are so thankful for any assistance you can provide to help us save our home!