Many of you are probably aware of what happened in Harrisonburg a couple of days ago. For those of you that aren't, there is an elderly couple living in a single wide trailer who had their grandson living with them. Their grandson, Jason Mercado, a US Citizen and Navy Veteran, has been recently showing signs of mental illness, but has not yet been officially diagnosed. Putting many pieces of the story together, he apparently was in his driveway holding either a machete or an assault rifle, and saluting, just hanging out by himself, not bothering anybody (or meaning to). A neighbor was disturbed by this and called the Harrisonburg Police Department. When the police arrived Jason got nervous and went inside the house. Already inside the house was his grandmother and her nurse's aide. Jason went down the hallway to his room, took a shower, and hung out there for the rest of the night. His grandmother, Ms. Gonzalez, decided that she was not going to come outside, wanting to make sure her grandson was OK, and the nurse's aide decided to stay with her. All the while, the police were surrounding the house with SWAT teams, a negotiator, and tons of other officers and equipment. They closed off the main road and surrounding stores, and evacuated the nearby homes. After a bunch of hours, the nurse's aide was forced (presumably by the police, but I cannot confirm this and don't want to give false info here) to bring the grandmother outside, and she was taken to the hospital as a formality. Many hours later, the police brought in an armored skid loader with a battering ram. They made two large openings in the side of the trailer to gain entry, where they poured in two canisters of tear gas. At that point Jason calmly went to the front door and came out, calmly asking to talk to just one officer. I can confirm this because the family showed me the video from their personal camera). He was then arrested and charged with something pertaining to holding two hostages. He currently remains in jail. This situation is a whole other conversation. For what it's worth, I have not met one person, or read one comment (out of MANY), who has said anything but positive things about Jason's character. And that includes myself and my husband. He has ALWAYS been polite, and nice to talk to. We have known him now for about 5 years. And if you read the comments on the HPD FB post, you will see that everyone that knew him could not believe he would do anything to harm anyone. And although part of me can understand why the police might be concerned about someone standing outside with an assault rifle in a tight trailer park, the reality seems to be that he was actually not threatening anyone, he didn't actually do anything wrong, other than refuse to come outside when asked. His guns are all legal. Anyway, this is my account of things, having not been there, but putting different stories and perspectives together.

The owners of this trailer are now essentially homeless. They are well into their 80's, and the wife (Jason's grandmother) is in a wheelchair and unable to speak (she is well aware of what is going on, and can nod to say yes or no, she just can no longer speak). She is in very poor health and has 24 hour in-home nursing care. The trailer is ruined for two reasons. One is due to the damage done by the skid loader. They actually removed two separate parts of the outside trailer wall. One was into the bathroom, completely damaging the shower and tub, the pipes, etc. The next time they hit the wall it was in the bedroom, completely damaging the walls, ceiling, and floor. The police did put up pieces of plywood to cover the holes, but the damage is severe, to say the least. The damage the gas did to the house is devastating. Even 2 days later you cannot even walk over the threshold into the trailer because the gas is on everything, and still in the air, and it overpowers you. The homeowners insurance does not cover this type of thing, and the police told them to call and pay a professional company to come and clean it up. Both of the occupants of this trailer are on Social Security and wholeheartedly unable to pay for needed repairs. They struggle financially just to get by on a regular day.

My husband and I actually own the trailer next door that we rent out, so we happen to know Ms. Gonzalez and her husband well, and they are VERY good people. The husband has helped us over the years take care of our property and keep an eye on things when nobody was there. He is the type of person to go out of his way to help anyone he can. We have always really liked him. He spends his days taking care of his wife, and now he has no idea how he is going to continue to do that. He has had situations over the last few years where rotten holes developed in the floor of the trailer, and my husband fixed those issues for him. The trailer is already extremely old, and over the years continues to have issues. These folks are always extremely grateful for the help we have been able to provide.

I am reaching out now to our community. I am sincerely hoping that we can come together and show this family that communities can support each other. Even when the world is so divided, and things seem to have gone crazy, that we as fellow humans can still be good to each other, despite our differences. I am hoping that their grandson can get the help he needs from the appropriate sources, and that we can pool our pennies together and help them have a place to live again. They have been a part of our community for a very long time.

My thoughts are this. I spoke to Clayton Homes in Harrisonburg today, and they quoted me around $125,000 for a brand new trailer, installed, with the old one taken out. This would leave us some wiggle room to make sure the bathroom was handicapped accessible for her wheelchair, and that it had a ramp. Obviously this is a big ask. If we cannot put this much together, then whatever money we can raise can go to repairing and cleaning the current trailer. So either way it will be a win, and they will have a place to live. If anyone has any questions or concerns I am happy to speak to you privately about it.