Help Save a 70 year old Marine vet from eviction

While we could not find a good picture of his face, just to see him being the human guinea pig for my then teen daughter learning to do waxing for the first time, shows you his heart. I am making a GoFundMe request for a dear man lives alone and in Cornelius, NC. I have been respectful to request his permission to share any or part of his story as he desires. Today, he has given me full permission to share his story. When I asked today and told him how this process works, he said this gives him hope.

Until last week, you would not have known that this hard-working, Marine veteran who has served his country during the Vietnam War era in Okanawa, Japan, was on the verge of losing his home to eviction. Eddie Howard will be 70 years old in February 2023 and he has been a full-time truck driver for about 7 years. He is just a big heart of a man and will be a giant, marshmallow goofball for any child or dog he comes across. With all of that joy, it brought me to tears to hear him share how he feels defeated about his situation and to say that he feels "incompetent in this economy and illiterate " with all of the changes in technology, increases in costs and job losses. He just feels that he can't keep up. I tried to encourage him, but I understood. This is his story:

He was downsized from an Arkansas-based over-the-road trucking company in June of 2022 where he drove as far as upper NY and down to TX in all types of weather.  And that is when this spiral began.

In July 2022, Ed was able to find new employment as a driver with Epes Transportation near his home of 5 years. He started driving at night 5 days a week driving just in NC and short trips to surrounding states so he can be back to his home daily. He has never had to be off of the road, driving at night or be at home daily, so he was shocked to see the cost of food outside of his normal TV dinners. He has had to get use to the price of gasoline costs as well because now he actually drives his little pickup truck to and from work daily 70+ miles RT. Utilities and other household costs have become increasingly expensive after COVID. He was beginning to get overwhelmed. He was always on the road before, so he has lived on the truck for a month or two at a time and had just the basic costs of his home rental, minimal utilities and vehicle payments to pay for at his home residence.  Living expenses were minimized to truck living.  While losing his job was tough, the timing of the job loss in June 2022 was a blessing because Ed needed to stop doing over-the-road driving; he was beginning to experience extreme anxiety from not being able to have as many places to park his truck at night. He was not able to fully sleep at night as well because he never knew whether his location was safe or if he would be ticketed. He was not clocking enough driving miles like he would prefer, simply because he needed to stop driving earlier in the day to find a place to park somewhere different every day. He had become overly stressed. Ed drove when he was a young Marine, so he does love the work he does.

While finding a new job after being downsized was challenging, maintaining his household expenses were still very manageable during the early summer.

Ed's spiral started after he started working for his new company. For the first time ever in his life, Ed elected to take on employer-sponsored benefits and do the pre-taxed payroll deductions. With his age approaching 70 years old, those age-expensed weekly deductions and payroll taxes amounted to over $575 per week! With those amounts set and deducted, Ed has had to continue driving full-time and not bring home more than $300-400 per week from August until December 2022. He found out that pre-taxed benefits deductions that are elected could not be changed until the new calendar year started in 2023, unless there was a life/family occurrence that had happened.  He just did not have a full understanding. He financially struggled through the remainder of 2022 upto January 2023 this year. In addition, Ed had a hack attempt on his bank account in the fall of 2022 and without knowing to change over his small monthly SSA deposits that he primarily used for food and gas during this time, he lost that benefit for a few months as well.

HOW THE EVICTION SITUATION EVOLVED:

Ed lives alone. Ed was not able to make full payments for his expenses since August  2022. He has been able to make partial payments for utilities and rent. However, it seems that FirstKey Homes whom he has been renting from for over 5 years, has changed their payment policy in the final months of 2022. He now must make full payments and all arrears. In talking to Ed last week, he received an eviction notice that states that he has less than 10 days to get the full amount of what is in arrears and the new February payment together. The total will be $9,700. He simply does not have it. An eviction would not allow him to get another place to live, especially close to his job, every again. Property management in the area do a full life look back and will deny rental with just one eviction. This is why this fundraiser is critical for Ed.

I sat down with him to get a full understanding of what all he needed and what could be done. Additionally, the utilities and other bills behind are approximately $2,000. If FirstKey Homes property management would have been able to accept his payments over a period of months, he could manage. When I called FirstKey Homes along with him, this was not an option given, only that 70% of the amount could be paid now the remaining about due in one week. That is when I saw the life drain from his joyful, God-fearing face and knew I had to do something. He has a few days to get all of the funds, and I am requesting help on his behalf. All funds are going directly to Ed's new bank account. Any remaining funds will go toward helping him get a computer to start a computer literacy class for seniors and a modest bed/bed set that he does not have. He does have a trundle bed.

For Ed's home, please join me and GIVE and SHARE this with others. He is a very proud Marine, realizing that at 70 years of age, much has changed in society. I want to show him the humanity that technology can bring love and support to his door.

We will get a full set of photos soon. Thank you.