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Challenges of Finding Affordable Housing

The apartment with the bathroom sink in the hallway and the refrigerator in the living room was the final straw. My Dad said, "The rent and deposit are equal to a down payment on a house and the mortgage payments will be cheaper, too." And so we went looking for a house under $40,000.

My husband and I were both young and strong. We had experience with demolition, hard work and we had a friend who was a house inspector. We should have had an easy time.

There was the one with a basement wall on crutches. The one less than five feet from the railroad tracks. The one where a heavy smoker had left the walls brown and sticky.

We persisted. The realtor said, "This one has a note that the garage needs to be knocked down." We got there before the realtor. We said, “We can get that down in minutes."

She sighed, "That's the house."

At the next one I said, "How did that motorcycle get on a second floor balcony?"

Her reply? "The police were supposed to evict them."

When we found one that only needed a new roof and furnace, we thought it was perfect. A one and half bedroom house with five rooms. And when we talked to the neighbors we found that it had been rented to a family of six and the landlord kicked them out because he wanted to sell.

The three of us would be living there now except for the house that came up for auction when I was pregnant, which we grabbed while we could.

Joyce Frohn

Member of the Oshkosh ESTHER Task Force

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