Book Description

The world is turning upside down, as families who were barely getting by before, now find themselves facing foreclosures and homelessness. Veteran families are no different, even with their homes under VA secure home loans. All it takes is losing your job unexpectedly, an unexpected medical bill, accident or natural disaster, to throw you into a sea of debt and additional hardships that launch you into a path that leads to losing your home. That's exactly what my family is facing right now, and unless the higher power that be or some amazing miracle appears, unless someone, somewhere who has the ability to help us turn things around and stop this horrific and cruel injustice, we almost surely will be losing our home in the next three months.. Without warning or reason, my husband lost the dream job that he had left the safety and security of active duty to take. It was that pay that our mortgage was based on, and there was no way we could have known it would only last for four short months. I made the mistake of thinking that finally life was going to start going our way, and stop kicking us around, after all that was the story my husband and i seemed to share. All that we wanted was to work, pay our bills, and enjoy our first home, while giving my son the chance to have a stable home that didn't have us moving to another duty station. For the first time in a very long time, i saw happiness and excitement on my sons face, and that was worth everything. I'll never forget the day my husband came home to tell me they had let him go without a reason. i will also ever forget how quickly our lives would go from living paycheck to paycheck, to watching it all come apart as the weeks and months that followed, turned into years. The battle to try and keep our home and not be forced out on the streets and homeless has been devastating and full of one nightmare after another. We are living proof that you can follow the rules, do everything right, and still get knocked on your butt. For the last three years, we have had to do everything we legally can to try and save our home from foreclosure and beg and plead the previous and current lenders to really help us and not just offer us band aid solutions. What we got were drawn out months of stalling and racking up interest and fees, while continued to deny us and push on with the foreclosure. Its concrete proof that profits and the laws protect and support the wealthy lenders and bakers, while offering little to no help nor interest on keeping veteran families in their homes. Try as i have, I have done everything i could to use social media and emails to try and get someone anywhere to listen to our story and help, but time after time its fallen on deaf ears, til now. The last three years has introduced me to other veteran families, many of which either have already lost their homes, or like mine, are trying to do what they can as quickly as they can to keep it. Taking the uniform off doesn't mean they are any less valuable. They answered the call to serve without hesitation because it was their duty. Now with my family, and all of those like mine, facing the growing crisis that we are facing, we are sending out the call for help and hoping that now, this country will answer our call. Our families are more than just account numbers on pieces of paper. For too long this country has crated waves of veterans and failed to protect and provide for them when they come home. It is my hope that sharing our story might help to raise awareness to this growing crisis, to maybe inspire others to not walk away but stand and fight as well. Until we stand up and start fighting back, they'll continue to take and destroy dreams, profiting along the way while we are left to pick up the pieces and try to survive. We are left trying to explain to our children why they dont have a room anymore, and now live in a car. We need change now not later, and it starts by sharing our stories.