Thank you:)

I think this is a wonderful idea. There are so many people going without and so many who have more then they know what to do with. I work full time and still dont make enough money to get a habitat for humanity home for my family of five. Thats pretty sad because make slightly over minimum wage. I dont know how people are making it at all anymore. Its a battle everyday to pay my bills on time and I am slowly giving up hope of owning a home someday with the mortgage crisis and the fact that we barely make ends meet now. Its a sad fact that hard working, dedicate, loving parents will never be able to give their children the American Dream life style that generations of the past could. Until the wealthy are able to help the needy I am afraid to see how many families with kids our homeless shelters will consist of.

angelicragect@yahoo.com

The crisis for American lower income families and those living below poverty level is only worsening. With the mortgage crisis more and more middle income families are facing foreclosure or have been foreclosed, they are taking from resources that low income families were draining up as it is. Homeless shelters are often at full capacity and it is no longer the drunkards and bums needing to spend the night there but accutal families with children. Renting an apartment in my state (Connecticut) requires first month, last month and security. The average 3 bedroom apartment in my town goes from 750 a month ( usually a dive in a bad neighborhood) to 1200 a month. So the average family needing a 3 bedroom would have to have the means of coming up with $3600 just to move in. On top of that there are the credit checks, which usually are an additional &50. Heating an apartment in the winter is an additional 150-200 a month..we pay 130 a month for electrity. Some landlords have gone so far as to charge for water as well.

And speaking of credit checks..why would someone with good credit be renting an apartment at those prices anyway?

I work full time as a cna in a nursing home. I love my job. I make a little over minimum wage and work full time. I have three children and a disabled husband who has been working with his lawyer to get disability for over 2 years now. We live in 2 bedrooms in a less then appealing neighborhood because it was what we could afford. I work overtime when I can and have tried my hand at various things such as ebay and the like anything to help make ends meet. It is a very hard everyday struggle. I am exhuasted, we dont have extras. We go without new clothes, I buy 2nd hand 99% of time except for underwear and socks and shoes and the like.

of course there are dreams we have. My parents finally got out of this town..this state (which is possibly the most expensive) and bought a home in Tenn. Of course I want to bring my children up in a better place like that..but the reality is when you wonder where the money for a roll of toilet paper is going to come from..it is impossible to think of being to save for a home..we make too little for Habitat for humanity for a family of five they want you to make 30,000 a year, I make far less than that. We cant buy a foreclosure because they want 16,000 down...who keeps that in there pocket? And what worries me more then my own family..and my own situation is the plight of the single mothers I see working at ACTUAL minimum wage at places like McDonalds or Kmart..how can they do it? I have my husband for childcare..thats one expense I dont encure..How can they possibly make it??

Welfare to work for those moms seemed like a solution back in the day but I see more and more of my children's friends home alone for hours on end..and its terrifying to think they are raising themselves. I see children in the streets at all hours of the night and day because their parents are working 2nd and 3rd shift jobs or sometimes both just to meet basic needs. Then we wonder why these children later turn to drugsd or crime or worse. I think something is seriously wrong with the system. Its time for change