So sit back, fasten your seatbelt, and join us as we muddle through.
On Thursday September 14, my husband Ray and I were talking about what we could do to get our hands on money enough to meet our financial obligations for the next few months. We had just received $3,000 from cashing out the last of our life insurance policies which would cover September and October's bills. He's been without a job for 27 months! I haven't worked outside the home since 2005. Fortunately he's old enough to qualify for $1100 a month from Social Security and Medicare benefits. I'm NOT old enough yet for SS and have no health insurance other than the Oregon Prescription Drug Plan. To get the prescriptions I need for my blood pressure and bipolar disorder, I have to see a doctor but since there's no money to pay a doctor and I haven't yet found a free or reduced price clinic, I'm totally out of my meds. That isn't good as I feel the symptoms of anxiety and depression hovering around the edges already. Ray has been working with the Board of Pensions to start drawing on his retirement but we really don't want to do that until the economy has recovered more. His pension is half what it was to be by this time because of the recession and we won't be able to live very long on it if we begin to draw on it now. What to do? What to do?
Later that day I received a phone call from my friend Elisa. She was upset and crying as she told me she and her husband Tim were being let go as apartment complex managers in Beaverton and they had only until the end of September to move their family of seven out of the apartment in which they were living at that complex. As a team she handled the rents while Tim handled the maintenance. They had just spent their savings on a lovely but simple wedding two weeks earlier so they didn't have funds for required deposits on another place.
Both Tim and Elisa are in the Army Reserves and Tim is scheduled to attend a class for six weeks in Utah starting October 1 as part of his training prior to another deployment to Iraq scheduled for June of 2011. Lisa had been in touch with their supervisor Aaron at the property management company to ask for some suggestions or help during those few weeks should repairs be needed in Tim's absence. Aaron then contacted her on Thursday morning and stated they were being let go as managers due to 'military instability' and that according to a new policy within the property management company, they had to vacate by the end of the month.
So here's a family with three teenage daughters and Kayla, a homeless teen, their second week of a new school year, a baby who will be two in October and nowhere to live. Lisa was freaking out! She and I had talked about her moving in with me a few months ago when Ray was looking at taking a Call in Michigan and during the time Tim would be in Iraq but that idea was put on the back burner when Ray didn't get that Call. In desperation, Lisa called me to see if there was any way they could all stay with us.
The rent they would normally pay would be given to us and they'd take over the responsibility of the cable and internet services as well. With money from student loans they are due to receive, unemployment benefits, food stamps and their monthly compensation from the Army Reserves, they'll be able to survive.
Meanwhile, Ray and I are trying to figure out where to put everybody and all their stuff. Yes, we have a five bedroom house in which Ray and I've been echoing about for two years but we have managed to make use of every room in some fashion. I didn't realize fully how much we've spread out until I saw the quantity of our own stuff we'd have to squish together again to make room for six additional people.
Tim & Lisa came over on Thursday evening and we walked through the house looking at the options and needs of everybody. It certainly looked like we could get them in here and do just fine as a multi-generational family. The problem was we had just ten days to do it all.
So there we were: three girls in turmoil having to say goodbye to their friends while trying to adjust to the idea of new surroundings and new schools. Tim & Lisa dashing around getting packing boxes, lining up a U-Haul truck, asking friends to help them move, enlisting help from the Army regarding the reason they'd been let go, applying for unemployment, enrolling the girls in the Forest Grove schools, helping Kayla find a new place to live, attending the 73rd wedding anniversary party of Lisa's grandparents, looking forward to their 3-day honeymoon trip, and keeping up with their on-line college courses.
Then on day six, Lisa fell down the basement steps and twisted her ankle. She was screaming in pain when Tim and I got to her. He lifted her to his shoulder and carried her like a fireman to his truck. I handed him her purse and cell phone and off they went to the emergency room. Little Summer sat on my lap crying in response to her mother's wailing as they drove away. In an hour, the girls would be returning from school. Was Lisa's leg broken? I called Lisa's mother Sandy to come help me with the baby and within a half hour she was here to take Summer for the night. As Sandy drove away with Summer, I suddenly inhaled deeply. I hadn't realized I was holding my breath!
Funny how everything just kind of stops when there's a crisis within a crisis.
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