for the record

Hello Readers!

Today I want to share with you my motivation for opening a resource center for single moms.  One of the moms involved in Swarm rents a house in my neighborhood.  She pays her rent to the homeowner who refuses to fix problems with the house until the very last minute.  In other words, she phoned him over six weeks ago about the water heater leaking.  He and his wife stopped by and although there was strong evidence of a leak (and an ongoing one at that) he said that the leak was small and easily solved by turning a latch, which he did and then promptly left the house.

This Swarm mom, ever hopeful, thought. 'well, maybe that really was the problem', and got on with her life.  Fast forward two days later, the water slowly started coming out again.  It was true that the leak was small, but for every leaking drop, her water bill increases...

She includes a letter in her next rent check stating the leak was back and that she was losing money because she was now paying for water that she was not using... No response from the landlord so she phoned him again and left a message.  Eventually he did get back with her and finally decided that the water heater might need repair. He sent over two of his regular plumbers who determined that a new water heater was needed and within days the water heater was replaced.  However, the leaking caused some problems under the house in the crawl space and now the mom has a mold problem.  The landlord says the mom should buy a dehumidifier to control the mold growth.  The mom does not have the money and the landlord is not required to provide one, so the mom, who is tired of having to go through hoops to keep her house in order, figures it is time to move.  She doesn't want to, because her child is settled and thriving right now and just doesn't need another disruption in her life, but mom is now concerned with health and safety.  Another problem with moving is the cost.  She would need a new down payment, using the current one for the last month's rent and the cost of a truck rental.

So now after sharing that little story I can get to the point... If I had the resources to help this mom, I would be able to help her finance the dehumidifier so she could stay put and have better control in her environment.  Another issue here is the cost to move from a potentially unsafe living space to a new home.  Truck rentals and down-payments can be more than the mother has in her savings account or in her SOS account.

This is what I mean by quality of life issues that single moms face. We are not so poor as to qualify for government help, yet the cost of some helpful products that could remove some stress and improve the quality of our lives is just out of reach.