In 2011, we realized a lifelong dream of moving to Oregon. We started in Portland, where I finished grad school, and then settled in Astoria in 2013. I worked at the community college for several years, and then moved into healthcare and advocacy. Jeff found his place at Tongue Point Job Corps, quickly moving from security to facilities, where he soon became a project coordinator - and second in command for center facilities.

Jeff loves his work and the love is mutual - he believes in the mission of Job Corps and thinks of many of these students as "his." Today he received this note from his department manager:

You may have heard that the Department of Labor recently terminated contracts with 80% of their Job Corps centers. The remaining 20% will likely close when the budget bill passes Congress. But unfortunately for us, we are in that initial 80%. Not only will Jeff be out of a job on June 30, 2025, we will also be homeless. The house we rent is on the Job Corps campus and we have to vacate by June 30, 2025.

Jeff and I planned to live and work here until Jeff's retirement. My mother moved in with us upon her retirement in 2016 and has lived with us since. We built a life in Astoria, set deep roots in this soil. We love Astoria and Astoria has healed us in so many ways.

This is home. We weren't planning to leave. The housing market is tight even if you have a lot of money. Affordable housing is nearly impossible to find and new jobs aren't in great supply. With the closing of Tongue Point Job Corps Center, 15 households are trying to relocate and about 140 people are looking for employment. There is no way we can compete with that.

So on May 30, 2025 when we heard the news about the center closing, we desperately hoped that we would at least have until end of July to somehow scrape together enough to move. We received confirmation today that it is indeed June 30th that we have to be out.

We don't have a lot of extra money. Those of you who know us know that we've had struggles over the years, big losses and upheaval. We've had to cash out retirement funds several times to fund moves, medical bills, float a period of unemployment and more. We have about $100 in savings. And we will be cashing out Jeff's retirement once again to help with all this. And we're having a huge moving sale on June 14th to try to raise some money and pare down what we have to move.

But it isn't even close to enough. While we were making great strides in paying off our debt, and while we had both been amping up contributions to our retirement funds, we are in trouble trying to do all of this in such a short amount of time.

We are planning to move to SW Michigan, somewhere within about a 100 mile radius of Dowagiac, closer to either Kalamazoo or South Bend, IN. We don't know anyone there, but I am a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and there are services there to help us with just about everything. We have distant family there but I've never met them. And we did enjoy many things about living in the Midwest back in the early 00's. The cost of living is far less than the Oregon Coast. We will have access to programs to help with healthcare, buying a home and other things once we get there. It's the most practical option - of course it is. I mean, it's the Midwest, and that's about as practical as it gets.

But we need help. Specifically, we need cash. We are trying to pay off medical bills and credit cards so we can use the credit cards once we relocate. That's close to $18000. We need to do some repairs to the car and truck to get ready to move, probably another $1-2K. The cost of the moving truck alone is about $5300 and that isn't counting gas or food (another $1400-1700). We are very fortunate that a friend has offered to let us use her RV until we find permanent housing, but the space for that (and storage for our stuff) will be about $4000 if it takes us 2-3 months to find housing. We will also need to rent a truck so we can tow it to Michigan - I haven't been able to price that yet, but I hear it is not going to be cheap. And storage for our household will probably run around $300-400 depending on how long it takes to find housing.

If you can help financially, we will be forever grateful and in your debt. Any favor we can return, you got it. You can come visit once we're settled - there's lots of cool stuff to do in Michigan. I'll give you good stuff from our garden once it's established. You'll leave with eggs. And of course, you'll have our undying love.

If you can't, that's ok too! Please share as far and wide as you can. If you want to say something nice about us when you share, that's great too!

Either way, I hope you'll follow our journey here. I'll post lots of updates and maybe even the occasional video.

The Oregon chapter of our life has been beautiful, healing... I got sober here, our marriage became stronger than it's ever been, I've hiked, I've run a half marathon and a handful of 5 & 10k's. We've learned who we are and what we can do. I don't know what the Michigan chapter will bring, but I think it's gonna be good. We just need to get through the next three months or so. Your love and support will sustain us.