How do you see your home?
Do you love your home? Is your space something peaceful and quaint? Does it feel chaotic and out of control? My experiences and research along with my work inside the most intimate part of people’s lives have inspired me to reflect on what we as a culture call home. What do you call home? Do you believe everyone sees the definition of home similarly? Do you understand the value of your home? Or are you unhappy with the responsibilities and deterioration of your fixer-upper? Here I challenge you to look at your own definition of what home truly is to you.
As a young undergraduate student, I took a class on getting to know each other. During one of our team building exercises, we were asked to define our meaning of home. As I continued to grow as an educator, mother, and business woman, I often reflected back on this entry level class to evaluate how I viewed my home. As a single mother, I loved coming home to the place I paid for. The place I took care of always needed a nice outdoor setting for us to play and reflect. We love gardening, respect nature, and even though I have always rent my homes, I have taken such good care of them, and continue to do so. In 2018 my definition of home began to change. While Terrance and I had combined single parent forces into one unit back in 2016, we were faced with a tragedy that would forever change our understanding of human rights in this country.
Struggling to pay for my insurance, I lost a great doctor and ended up waiting a year for a thyroid surgery that was really exasperating my then uncertain conditions. Terrance was determined to keep Unique going despite the days I simply could not keep up. We lost our home in 2018 and were evicted from a house for having been late for only one month (and we had paid more than half through weekly payments). Business had slowed for my then nonprofit, and I was getting sick. I couldn’t eat and began to be sick to my stomach often. I cancelled work and was very often filled with regret and sadness for being unable to continue utilizing the education I had worked so hard for. Homelessness is like living inside a giant bubble and looking in on yourself. I felt like we were trapped inside a snow globe with nothing but winter all around us all the time. My peaceful home that had been a constantly changing reflection was now shattered. We have no home. Where would my boys sleep? What would this do to their self esteem? We tried a shelter. They told us we couldn’t leave for work. There was sickness inside. Dark walls and people with long, heavy faces. Some saw us as a light coming in and others were angry at our presence and family dynamic. There was no counseling or mental health services for parent struggling like us. We had started Unique the year before, and we used our good name and business savvy attitudes to pull ourselves up out of that lonely place and begin to rent short term properties at a very high cost from one of our AirBnb clients. If it had not been for her we would have stayed in that shelter for months. But what about the people we left behind? What programs would they qualify for? How long would it take them to get out? The questions began turning in my mind as Terrance and I fought to keep a roof over our heads.
After the 60 days our client allowed us to trade for housing had expired, we rented a 2 bedroom 750 square foot home for a price we could barely afford monthly from someone else we found on AirBnb. We justified the $1500 because it was Dogtown, and we loved the safe area. We struggled for 2 years to keep that up, never truly having a sense of home but really making the best out of our small space. Terrance grew grass in the otherwise muddy yard, we planted a small garden, and we talked to our neighbors. We were great tenants. All of the sudden pandemic hit and we found ourselves paused for quite sometime with our small business: unable to afford or even find the proper PPE at that time, combined with my declining health had really set us back from expanding the way we wanted to in 2019. When the owner of the short term property we had rented would not budge on rent, and we quickly found a new place to move.
Our new home has been a true blessing for a family of our magnitude. We have space. We love our neighbors. We are active in the community and volunteer, organize groups, and help people whenever we can. Last year 10 families were adopted through our small business program. We have case managers from big organizations here who we coordinate furniture drop off and pick ups for. We LOVE our community. But we don’t own our home. We were both divorced and suffered financial hardships from illness and work loss. We could only rent. Purchasing was our goal, and even though we loved our new home, we knew we were on the 5 year plan to purchase our forever home. Suddenly our reality changed again: in May of this year, we were told in order to resign our lease (our 3rd lease signing with them) our rent would be doubling. While we were in a state of shock, our past experiences have shown us that we don’t have many rights as renters. We also knew how quickly a home could be lost. So we made a decision.
As I started reflecting on my garden, the landscaping we put in, my dog, the kids’ true connection to this house and the growing they have done in the past 2 years. I realized the price of a home does not have a tangible label. The home we have does not have a price. So as we move forward into a new age, we realized our rent is worth the happiness and peace we have in this home we have adored for 2 years. We will work harder. We will not give up on our dream of ownership. But we will define our home with what is filled inside these walls: love, faith, struggle, partnership, guidance, leadership, and adoration for each others’ beauty. No ownership. But 100% care and love for the meaning of our home.
