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I recently read an article from one of your reporters explaining how they almost became homeless. I thought I would share my story to show that it can happen to anyone.
I’m currently about eight months away from losing my home and barring some kind of miracle, I’m not going to be able to stop it.
Let me start with the events that caused my misfortune.
On Nov. 18, 2018, I started having really bad stomach pains so I asked my wife to drive me to the hospital. I remember lying in a bed in the hospital hallway, then waking up to my wife holding my hand in the ICU.
Turns out that was about a month later.
I had a severe pancreatic attack caused by stones in my gallbladder. I had several machines pumping antibiotics into me and two tubes down my nose that fed me. I weighed just under 100 pounds, and had tubes in my stomach and my lungs draining fluid build up. I survived, but was in for a long recovery.
I had just helped start a new company that was about three months old and although I was working on getting benefits for everyone, I got sick before I could implement them. I was fortunate to have some savings squirreled away and I could collect three months of Employment Insurance benefits.
Hard to complain as I was alive and my wife and kids could survive the next five to six months on the money coming in.
By April 2019, EI was done, all of our savings were gone and I was still lying in a hospital bed with tubes and machines attached to almost every part of my body. I applied for CPP long-term disability, but to everyone’s shock was turned down. We were now a one-income family with two cars and a mortgage.
Thankfully at the time, we didn’t have any credit card debt and it was just a small mortgage. We also had support from family, so we could survive a couple more months.
I was let out in July 2019 and even though I could still not walk very well and still had tubes stuck in me, I was making a comeback. Within a week, I started going back to the hospital because I was not feeling well. All I remember from the fourth time I went back, less than two weeks after I was released, was my dad driving me into the hospital.
I woke up in the ICU to my smiling wife saying, “Hi.” That was September 2019. I had gone septic. I had blood clots in my lungs, stomach and Legs. I had fluid build-up in my stomach and lungs. I weighed 76 pounds.
The doctor’s didn’t think I was going to make it and tried to convince my wife to take me off life support. All my family and friends said their goodbyes. I can’t even imagine the conversation my wife had with my two teenage kids trying to explain that I’m probably not going to make it.
I never stopped fighting, so I could get back to my wife and kids. Little did I know I was causing them more harm and sending us to a path where we could end up homeless.
You see at that point our two-income family had been a one-income family for months and mine was the bigger income. Even though she tried to hide it, I could see the stress in my wife as the walls closed in on us.
She had to run up all the credit cards and take out stupid loans just to put food on the table. I was once again starting to fight my way back and in an attempt to try and help, I took out a second mortgage on the house while I was still in the hospital.
I contacted a mortgage broker who managed to get me approved using the equity in our house. The interest rate was fairly high and the fees were outrageous, but it was really our only choice. I reapplied for CPP disability and after a few weeks of no response, I contacted our MP Marc Serré. He had me approved within a week. Thank you Marc.
It was too late as the second mortgage papers were already signed and the fees were paid. We were ok with that though as we would be able to make the payments even though my CPP disability payments are only $1,000 per month.
I got out of the hospital in January 2020, 14 months after my first pancreatic attack. I still have all kinds of machines attached to me and can barely walk, even with a walker, but with some hard work and physiotherapy, I was determined to get back to myself and set an example for my kids that I hope will stick with them forever.
Imagine my surprise when in November 2020, I get a call from the mortgage broker stating that my second mortgage was coming due and that I would need to pay for another home appraisal so that we can secure another loan to pay off the second mortgage.
I know people are going to say it’s my fault, but please understand, I was in the hospital fighting for my life and on every medication you can think of in a desperate attempt to help my family. I did not know that the mortgage was for only a year or how these types of mortgages worked.
Normally, I would have never gone for this and been fully aware of what was happening, but my circumstances made that impossible. We had never missed or even been late for a payment, so our credit was pretty good and I figured we should be able to get everything put into the first mortgage and actually bring our payments down — so no problem.
No bank would lend us the money because they said we didn’t make enough money. We had been with our bank all our lives and never missed a payment, and they just discarded us like garbage. I was once again forced to take another horrible mortgage with outrageous fees. To this point, the fees alone totalled our original loan.
We now have no equity in the house and another one-year mortgage. We still continue to make all of our payments and have never been late on any of our mortgages.
Even though I’ve had a couple of setbacks and spent more time in the hospital, I’m recovering nicely and am now back to 170 pounds. I have Type 1 diabetes now because my pancreas stopped working, but it’s manageable and I’m starting my path to find a job and go back to work.
Here’s what’s going to happen in about six months though, regardless if I find a new job by then or not. My second mortgage is going to be due, but because of the now accumulated debt and the fact that I will have no equity in my house, I will not only get turned down by the banks again even the second mortgagee won’t approve me because I would need to borrow more than 100 per cent of my home’s value just to pay the additional fees they would charge.
They are going to come after my house and there’s nothing I can do about it. My family and I will no longer have a home.
If you see someone begging for change on a corner, please don’t judge them too harshly — it could be me trying to buy gas to keep my vehicle warm for my family on those cold nights. When you see me, please hug your spouse and kids because it could’ve been you.
In closing, I’d just like to make a few points:
- There was nothing I could do to stop the pancreatic attack. It could happen to anyone and I harmed my family by surviving.
- I don’t drink, smoke or do any drugs other than insulin for my diabetes.
- I have no mental illnesses and have had a pretty good upbringing with great parents.
- I have a good education and have worked steadily since I started laying sod as a 12-year-old in the building complex where I lived.
- I did not have mountains of debt and had some money saved in case of an emergency.
- It was a perfect storm of circumstances and misfortune that brought me to this point; it can happen to anyone.
- Every homeless person has a story on how they got there. Instead of treating them like they are an inferior burden, try understanding and compassion.
May good fortune and life smile on you, from a soon-to-be homeless family.
While Sudbury.com does know the name of the writer of this piece, we are withholding that information to protect the family’s privacy.
