Help The Cameron Family Rebuild After Home Damage

Hi, my name is Angel Lugo, and I am lucky enough to be close friends with the sweetest family - Melynda Yesenia, Steve Cameron, their school age daughters Kalyāni and Dayana, their eldest daughter Nandini, and their 2 rescue dogs Ozy and Bones. I met Steve in 2020. The pandemic was in full swing and Steve serendipitously entered my life as a much needed friend. He would randomly bring me over vegan donuts, fresh baked breads, vegan deli slices - all of it lovingly handmade and delicious. I seriously don't know anyone else this versatile in the kitchen or this selflessly generous. I was struck by his giving nature. And then I met his wife Melynda, an awesome artist and wonderfully intelligent human being, and we connected deeply on everything from art and movies to the social and political issues that plague our current times. Their two youngest daughters instantly befriended me and insisted on holding my hand for trick or treating and pumpkin picking and making cool art to hang on my wife's and my refrigerator. This family is truly one of a kind. Melynda and Steve are phenomenal humans, building community across cultural and racial lines, raising incredible children and consciously embodying the change they want to see in the world. Unfortunately, disaster has recently struck their humble Emmaus home and their insurance company, Liberty Mutual, is fully denying their claim (damn insurance companies.)

Here are their cute and silly dogs Bones and Ozy before we delve any further.

Okay that was a nice break, so....The Crisis

The week before Christmas an active leak was discovered in the Cameron home. This leak had slowly been eroding and destroying their home unseen for weeks. And the effects of this are magnified by shortcuts and shoddy renovations done on their home nearly five years ago.

The short of it: Carpets, kitchen subfloor, tiles and drinking water filter systems were all destroyed!

Despite enlisting the expertise of three plumbers and a professional leak finder, it took nearly four weeks to pinpoint and contain the leak, inevitably leading to further water damage. Their insurance adjuster insisted that he would not come to their house to inspect the damages until after the plumbing/leak had been addressed, despite them telling him about the difficulties they were having getting plumbing professionals to their house during the holiday season. At the beginning of January, their insurance adjuster was finally able to review the damages. Then they received the worst possible news. Liberty Mutual was considering the damage as "long-term", meaning it had been longer than two weeks since the damage began and they would be denying their claim on this basis...oh the cruel irony. Repeated attempts to appeal the decision have failed. Throughout this entire ordeal, the entire Cameron family has been battling illness, with Melynda now contending with bronchial pneumonia resistant to treatment. With two young kids and a full house, they are struggling to recover from hit after hit while trying to stop water from destroying their home.

The Financial Situation

Melynda stays at home with the kids. Steve works as a freelance graphics operator away from home most days. Currently they are a single-income household for many reasons. Over the past few years Melynda has been adapting to a degenerative tissue disorder that limits her mobility; causes chronic pain, dizziness, and headaches; and most recently has started to affect her heart in the form of POTS. She hasn't been able to access healthcare to manage her symptoms because of the high cost of specialists and copays. Her main disorder, Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome, is not a recognized disability so she currently does not qualify for disability benefits, even though it absolutely gets in the way of her working most conventional jobs and she has even added "wheelchair user" to her resume.

At present the family is looking at out of pocket repair and remediation costs in excess of $7,500. This is a preliminary baseline estimate to diagnose and remedy the plumbing defect leading to the leak, repair the subfloor, floor tiles, drywall, remediate any mold that could further impact their health, replace carpeting, and restore the filtration system for onsite drinking water. As a single-income household, the family is burdened by the daunting task of shouldering these repair costs alone while juggling the responsibilities of daily life.

Please help me to help my friends. It breaks my heart to see them face struggle after struggle. Allow Melynda, Steve, their daughters and pets a safe, well maintained home with a long future of good health ahead of them.

Any gift, whether $5.00 or $500, is greatly appreciated. And if you cannot donate, please share this with other people as my influential reach is limited. Thank you for reading all of this.

Here's a cute pic of me, Dayana, and Ozy hangin' out.