As everyone
who has talked to us in the last eight months can attest we have been planning
to move to Colorado since January. We began the house hunt in March and became
more and more frustrated as time went by and we couldn’t find anything we liked
or anything in the areas we wanted. We finally decided to just get an apartment
while we house hunted.
After
spending another month looking for an apartment we found one we liked not
necessarily loved.
After talking
to the apartment manager I filled out all the paperwork, sent him our
REFUNDABLE security deposit and waited to hear from him. After about a week and
a half I called and he told me we had the apartment. I gave him our move in
date and asked him how much I needed to pay on move in day. He told me he would
let me know. A week later I called again to get the exact address and to set up
our utilities. He gave me all of the requested information and once again
confirmed that we had the apartment.
I had all of
the utilities turned on, and forwarded all of our mail. I let all the
publishers know the new address as well for the The Book Reading Gals website.
We packed up
our apartment in Vegas and hit the road. After traveling for two days we
arrived in Denver and early the next morning made our way to Brighton where our
apartment was located. When we got there we were informed there was an issue
and they needed to see our 2011 taxes. Unbeknown to us the apartment was an
income based apartment. Because everything was on the U-Haul and he wouldn’t
let us just get it to him later after it had been unpacked we had to go down to
the IRS office in downtown Denver. I then spent 2 hours waiting to get a copy
of my taxes while Mike and the boys explored.
We then
headed back to Brighton where we were informed that because of our adoption we
had to refill out our paperwork. Why this mattered we still haven’t been told.
At this point it was 3 in the afternoon we still had no keys and when I asked
him if we needed to get a hotel room for another night he assured me that we
would have keys that evening. At 4:55 he came to us and told us that there was
an issue regarding the fact we have a closed adoption and our subsidy and they
needed more information. Now this is information that they DON’T need to know.
I had to email our adoption subsidy worker and ask her for a letter explaining
that this was none of their business and what adoption subsidy was. I also had
to explain to her that without it we wouldn’t have a place to live. Oh and he
wanted Mike to sign an affidavit stating
he wouldn’t work for a year.
Now bear in
mind at this point Mike was furious and I was in tears because this guy had
been stringing us along for weeks, and we were in a new state with no family and
no place to live.
I told him
that if it came back to bite me in the butt about me having to tell our
adoption worker we were homeless no one in their company was going to be safe
from my wrath.
At 8:30am the
next morning our worker faxed over the letter explaining everything to him.
When I called him at 10 he informed me he had just gotten it, as she had
emailed me at the same time she sent the letter I knew that for a lie. I told
him he had until noon to have an answer for us. In the meantime I went down and
got the room for another night, as I had a feeling he was going to jerk us
around so more. At 1 we went back to the apartment to find out what was going
on and he informed us that someone at the Colorado Dept of Housing had to
approve us. WTF!!! It was at this point Mike completely lost it, and went off on
the guy. They went the rounds for more than an hour when Mike finally forced to
the guy to make a decision. They guy told us we were denied. At which point I
was outside crying on the phone to my sister Kim about everything. Mike then
had the boys thank him for making us homeless. He looked at Mike and told him
no we had made ourselves homeless because of our adoption. Mike told him to
have our deposit ready for pickup by Friday.
In the
meantime my girlfriend Janon here in CO and my girlfriend Helen in California had been on the internet and
phone all day looking for a place for us to move into. As we were heading back
to the hotel (about 20 minutes away) Helen called and told me I needed to call
Stephanie at Belle Creek in Henderson. I called her and talked to her, and told
her I would call her back after I talked to my husband. We dropped the boys and
Finn off at the hotel and went and checked out this apartment she’d found for
us.
As soon as we
pulled into the community in the middle of nowhere, we knew we’d come home. It
would talk all of the money we’d been saving to move in but we felt it was
worth it. We told Stephanie our situation and she became determined to help us
out. We filled out the paperwork, gave another deposit and she promised to call
us the next day with an answer.
That night we
all prayed that we could move in. At noon Stephanie hadn’t heard back on our criminal
background check (yes this place does a criminal background check on everyone)
and she told me to get the hotel for another night and to put all of our stuff
in storage. At this point Mike and I had watched our six months of living
expenses dwindle to two months because of having to live in a hotel for almost
a week. I also called the Bishop of the ward the new apartment was in. He was
very sympathetic and had us meet with him that night to discuss everything.
The four of
us unloaded our U-Haul into a storage unit in 3 hours as we had to have the
truck turned in by a certain time, and we needed to meet with the Bishop. Just
as we were finishing up with the truck Stephanie called us to tell us we had
gotten the apartment.
When we met
with the Bishop, he had the Relief Society President and someone from the Elder’s
Quorum with him. They told us they had been brainstorming places for us to move
into to get us out the hotel, they’d even gone so far as to contemplate
breaking into a member who is out of town for an extended time’s home and
having them overnight the keys. They were all relieved when we told we had
found a place to live, and helped us out in other ways.
We are now in
a beautiful apartment in a community where everyone knows their neighbors, they
have community get togethers and the neighbors all hang out on their porches at
night and visit. There is grass and trees everywhere.
We have had
to deplete our accounts to get this place, and are now in a fight to get our
money back from the other apartment complex, but we are happy. Everyone is
slowly recovering from the stress and anxiety of last week and being homeless.
The boys are acting normal, I’m no longer crying every time someone looks at me
or talks to me, and Mike is no longer angry.
I have a
teaching job fair for Spanish teachers only next week and another manuscript
due then as well. Both boys are excited about their new school and Mikhail is
heading to the temple on Thursday for the first time, and Mike is looking for a
job as well.
