Reality Check

Home buying. Quite the daunting task for those who have never owned their own home. Thankfully, Chris and I have a good realtor and we think we have done our homework. After going house hunting first time last week and then taking a closer look at our budget Sunday night, we have had to re-evaluate what we can realistically afford. What started out as fun has become stressful and frustrating. How can we get what we want and still feed ourselves?? It isn’t like we have overly high expectations. He wants a fireplace and a decent kitchen where he can cook. (Yes, he does the cooking. More on that in another blog.) I want a garage for both of our cars and I don’t want to feel as though I am living in a box. So we ended the weekend with dashed hopes and begin to wonder how anyone can afford a house.

Reality check! That came Monday afternoon when I went to work and visited one of the kids I counsel. (I’m a therapist…aka: social worker, poor but happy.) I started talking to the child’s mom who is a single parent with three kids. She works very hard at her job at Wal-Mart but is in very poor health. But boy is she a firecracker.

I work at an elementary school in what is unofficially the inner-city. Roughly 95% of the kids at the school have free or reduced lunches and 99% of them live in bad neighborhoods. This mom lives in a beautiful neighborhood as the city recently renovated that area. Most of the old houses were torn down, the gang members were kicked out, and the crack houses were boarded up. Now the neighborhood boasts of beautiful houses with professionally landscaped yards. Most of the neighbors are new as well…most, but not all.

This mom I am working with is one of those neighbors who has lived in the same house for 10 years. She shared with me that changes are being made to the renovated neighborhood and that people who rent are no longer welcome. Apparently renters carry a certain stigma about them…poor, uneducated, dirty, and unable to maintain a nice looking house both inside and out. This mom may be poor and uneducated but her house is immaculate both inside and out.

She explained that her landlord is being bought out and the plan is to increase her rent so she can no longer afford to live there, thereby forcing her to relocate. She was upset as she talked about how she lived through the bad times where the gang members would egg her house because she wouldn’t let them park in her lawn, where she had to kick dope dealers off of her porch, and where she had to literally hit the floor when there were drive by shootings. Now that things have smoothed out, she is no longer welcome and although she is going to neighborhood meetings to advocate for herself, the future for her is bleak.

I came home from work yesterday with a different approach to house hunting. We may not have a lot of money to work with but we do have hope, we have options, and most of all, we have the ability to advocates for ourselves and we know people will listen. It is a time to count our blessings and move forward with humility, thanking God for what we have been given for so many others have been given less.