Name: Sherri Elliott
Email: sherri.elliott22@gmail.com
Address: Homeless
City: Springfield
State: OR
Zipcode: 97477
Phone: 541-246-7255
Prayer Request:  Hello,

I am going out on a limb here… I pray that God has led me here for the right reason, and that with the power of prayer my family will be blessed with the help that we need.

We are a family of 5 who have been homeless now for nearly 3 years. Before our eviction from our home, I had just landed the work at home position I had been fighting over a year for, making 13 dollars an hour, while still being able to be a stay at home mother to John and my 3 sons. This job came to me right after our youngest son was born in February of 2014. This was an exciting blessing for me as well as for our whole family as we needed the income so much being that we got into our home with the help of Catholic Communities housing program. During this time I was also grieving over the loss of my father who passed away on the same day, just 3 hours before our sons arrival. When I saw our baby Eric he looked just like my dad. Looking at dads newborn photo anyone would have guessed it was the same baby. This took me a while to take in I was so astonished, in amazement over it, yet it was the very thing that gave me the strength that I meeded to go forward, and that allowed me to find a way to enjoy our new son rather then becoming a sorrowful sobber every other minute of the day. Seeing dad through Eric soon made me feel prideful. I miss him still terribly and it has been 4 years. In the time of our homelessmess dad would have had amswers for me..instead Im stuck with tje weight of the world on my shoulders and John, my fiance being the man of the house I can only imagine the amount of helplessness he feels. He feels like a failure but hes the only reason we haven’t for a minute ever froze in the cold while sleeping outside, or been robbed.of our belongings or had our safety threatened in any other way,or gone hungry…

After that program we were to transfer onto another program which would guide us financially to prevent us from losing our place and with it came a worker whod meet with us once a week to go over goal planning and financial strategies to maintain a savings and such. When the time came to transfer we were told that the two programs (the one that helped us into the apartment and the new one) had merged and that we were no longer eligible for this program because we had already received help from the previous one. I contacted the head of housing services…the head of catholic community rather, her name was Lupe….she explained to me that no programs had merged and she saw no reason why I had been told what I did, and that shed take our case to the board and she did. She contacted me 3 days later telling me that she was very sorry, that she tried and there was nothing she could do. We were placed back onto the centralized wait list….we carried ourselves paying full rent on our own (plus owing back rent with the intent to pay specifically by this other program) for about 4 months then couldnt keep up and we were evicted. Almost THREE YEARS later here we are still without housing or the proper help we need. We have went from being under a tarp, to a tent, to rooming with someone we knew twice, both times our money being stolen from us and second time our money and all of our belongings being stolen and us leaving or being told to leave, to a period of time in a motel room durring snow to a tiny house via catholic community, but it was the 1st tiny house ever there and it was just dropped there without inspection from being parked beside fern ridge lake for 8 months so while we were so happy to get into it there was no hook ups inside so no running water and it was infested with flies so we got through that to find bees and wasp nests lining the outer gutters and we got through that and as that was taken care of came spider nests’ lady bugs and western seed bugs that would crawl on the ceiling and drop onto us…. I didnt get much sleep here either. We then were blessed with an RV and place to park it. It was then that Catholic Community aired on the news their 1st tiny house with its 1st family with ribbon cutting by the Mayor. That however was not the 1st tiny house and family… WE were. Anyway we got moved out of there without help at all to the rv and were good for 8 months while strenuously applying for places but someone called the city on the property owner and he said wed be good there unless that happened. This property owner of the spot we were in had John (my fiance) doing security for the area. Well the person who called the city was a drug dealer who brought nothing but negative to the entire area and he got that person kicked off the property so she called the city in hopes wed lose the spot and we did. The property owner also has a medical building that is empty across from Mckenzie Wilamette Hospital and he allowed us to park here until he leased out the building and thats what we are facing now. We needed to be gone on the 31st of last month because SPFPD is renting it to undergo training, but the rv needs a fuel line ran.. we need a truck for garbage runs and from the area we were parked previously we brought a mouse which has turned into lots of mice and now rats too. We are completely freaking out and have tried everything to get rid of them….we are so scared that someone will notice amd call the state and they will take our kids..  The rodents now are seeming to be everywhere now getting through under the rv in various places. This is over our heads and we cant have the kids in this environment any longer. We can find help we are almost positive in taking care of the rodents ourselves but we would need us out of it and to give it a deep cleaning followed by an abundance of bombs, and traps to catch them and then a few days to get them all caught.

Reverand Nancy Gallagher from St Johns Episcopal Church in Springfield (she has known us for quite some time now) without hesitation paid for us to stay for 7 days at the Crosslands motel, now called Townehome Studios. Today is our last day – check out is 11am and I am writing to you because we need help with 1 more week. After paying for 5 dump run trips to clean the area the rv is at, getting a new rv key made because we lost the original, a new battery and a ton of gas in a can to try to get it started and running plus buying new fuel line hose we have no more money and this is why Nancy helped. Our goals now are to get the mechanic to run fuel line, finish deep cleaning the RV and getting needed traps to catch all the rodents then. A few days will be needed to catch them all, then disposal of them and thorough cleaning. We also need to get it tagged as the tags are 2002 and finally, find a place or person who allows us to park the rv temporarily while we continue to find stable housing.

I know this is a lot to ask…but we need help now like never before and since we have already began this task and the fact that we need to get this rv moved asap and that we are already here at the motel because of this…to lose the help now will place us and our kids without a roof and the only thing we have been able to call our home.

Reverand Nancy came to the motel today and paid 2 more days and it is all she can do. We need a good amount of time here to get everythimg sorted out with having a clean environment for the kids as they go to and from school.

Tonight we were tested with a test that would solve our issues immediately and keep us in this motel paid for for 30 days. Something sonout of nowhere and so perfectly timed that we both knew that this test could only have come from Satan. A young lady we know came up to us and asked if we were Mormon. She says well you know I been homeless forever now right..do you want to be mormon? We said…what are you talking about? She told us that 2 missionaries came up to her 30 minutes ago and began talkimg what they do. She told them about her homelessness that it was her last night in the motel and that she had nowhere to go. They called on their pastor (forgive me if I do mot know the proper term if he is not called a pastor) He wrote her out a check immediately without hesitation for about $1400…1 month paid in this motel and theyd be back 30 minutes later to speak the ways of becoming and living mormon. . .

This woman is not a mormon nor does she care about the fact that she under everyones assumption was christiam, pretended to want this in order to gain this stay at the motel.

Now we have done stupid things. Both John and I sin and have done things well worth regretting but to blatantly dismiss your Christian faith to pretend to be that of another religion for financial gain?!?! … We tell you right now that as sweet as a month woukd be in this motel….the fact.that it would bring us through the holidays without worry and we would be warm, a roof over our heads, a shower…. We said no way. No way. She can keep that one way ticket to hell, I think I prefer where we are headed far better.

Anyway…Its hard… We need so much help and yes …a month…I dont know if you can but it would be the ultimate blessing and we would never forget it. Anything helps at all….any amount of time, even a day or two helps….

Either way,
We thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,
The Lockhart Family