Moving Back Home

“I used to sit in the front room and look at the park across the street,” Antoinette said. “I’d look at the snow and all the animals. I could see foxes and all kinds of stuff.”

Antoinette has lived in the same neighborhood for 30 years. When she moved to Milwaukee, her home was the first place she called her own. Her kids and grandchildren have been raised in the home. However, staying there has proved challenging.

When she first moved into the home, she was renting it. After 11 years of living there, her landlord came to her and told her she had one month to move. 

She was forced to leave the home and neighborhood she’d called home for so many years. 

In a wild twist of fate, years after Antoinette was forced out, the owner foreclosed on the home. Antionette’s children found out and devised a plan. Together, they bought the house where they grew up and gifted it to their mother. Antoinette could finally move back home. 

“It will be something to stay in the family and pass down. We’ll never be broke,” Antoinette’s daughter Adina said.

However, the house needed work. It needed a new porch and electrical repairs. Antoinette knew she needed to prioritize these repairs before moving back into the home. That’s when Antoinette called Milwaukee Habitat. 

Through the Milwaukee Habitat Critical Home Repair Program, Antoinette is getting electrical repairs and her porch redone with a 0% interest loan and flexible repayment options.

“I feel like you got Habitat behind you. We don’t get played. Having the extra voice [of Habitat] really does get the job done and get it done right,” Adina said. 

When asked what this repair will mean to her, Antoinette responded, “everything.”

“My kids were raised in that house. My baby was 5 and now he will be 41,” she said. “It hurt so bad when I had to move for those years. People ask me when I’m gonna move, and I say never.”