Ann couldn't sleep if she thought it was going to rain. It wasn't just the stress of having to put out the buckets and pans to catch the water that would keep her awake - it was the knowledge that the situation was only going to get worse and she couldn't do anything about it. She would lie awake, wondering if this storm would be the one to pull her entire roof in or, after the storm passed, if she would end up sharing her home with mice or insects who found their way in through the holes in her ceiling.
"I would wake up at night if I heard rain, and then I just couldn't go back to sleep worrying about it - and it just kept getting worse. I can't tell you how stressful it has been to be constantly worrying about the roof collapsing."
An instructor at a community college, Ann was already stretching her paychecks to pay the bills even before the pandemic. But since 2020, she found her hours being cut and was even without work for several months - forcing her to make sacrifices on even basic necessities for her and her child. "I just grew more and more depressed and there was no way I could even think of something like a roof when I had trouble just buying food."
Ann's neighbor knew about her difficulties and happened to see something that might help solve at least one problem: an ad for the Greater Matthews Habitat Critical Home Repair program. She forwarded the information to Ann, who applied and qualified for a roof replacement, at no cost to her. Our team went in, replaced her roof, gave Ann a new sense of pride in her home, and took some worries off her plate. "The new roof is so beautiful it makes me cry every time I look at it. Of course, it is functional but it is also beautiful. Having a new roof is such a blessing."