My Family Needs to Escape a Racist Community

Two years ago, my family and I moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania to live in an upscale community that would be safe for our children to grow and prosper.

Little did I know about the nightmare I was walking into. At first everyone around was kind and neighborly, but over time true colors started to show.

It started when I would find random trash in my yard. I didn’t think much of it at first, but then it was more frequent. And then I started noticing people taking pictures of the trash.

There’s an HOA in my community and I started to get “rule violations” for the trash which is when I realized that the people who were putting trash in my yard were sending the pictures to the main office.

Then for some reason my hot water kept getting turned off. I would go outside to the tank and see what’s wrong and every time it was switched off even though I would turn it back on every time.

Next the police started coming. Everything went down hill from there. Literally once or twice a week the police come banging on my door.

My daughter who has a TBI is sensitive to sound and when they bang on my door it puts her in distress.

When the police bang on my door it’s always for the most extreme and untrue reasons. Someone called one time and said there was a domestic dispute while I was live-streaming.

Last week someone called and said that there was a dead kid in my house. Yesterday they said I was selling firearms in my driveway.

I could’ve easily gotten killed if the police out here were having a trigger happy day.

So my wife and I had enough and decided to sell out home and move out the community to go back to Pennsylvania.

It’s not just the racism, it’s the actions behind the racism that make us feel unsafe.

A few weeks ago my wife took my eldest daughter for a walk and a group of people called both my wife and my daughter slurs and told them to leave the neighborhood.

It’s too much for our mental health and we need to leave. Unfortunately, our buyer backed out of the deal to buy our home after signing a purchaser agreement so now we don’t have the funds we need to leave and we already put a deposit on our next place.

So I am asking for help because I’m not sure what else to do at this point. I just want my family to be safe.

Any help is appreciated.