To Pay For Mortgage And Health Care, Woman Forced To Sell Letter From Obama Saying ‘Things Will Get

Better’


http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/01/woman-obama-better-letter/



Every single day, President Obama receives a special memorandum with “10 pieces of correspondence addressed to” him from Americans of all walks of life, a tradition he has kept up since he made the request to receive these letters on the second day of his presidency.

In January of this year, Obama read a letter from Jennifer Cline, a 28 year-old woman living in Monroe, Michigan. Cline informed Obama that she and her husband had both lost their jobs in 2007 and fallen on hard times as a result. “I lost my job, my health benefits and my self-worth in a matter of five days,” she wrote. Following the loss of her job, Cline “was diagnosed with two types of skin cancer, and she had no health insurance. She signed up for Medicaid, and treatment was successful. She went back to college after her unemployment benefit was extended.” She hoped that in “just a couple of years we will be in a great spot.”

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Yeah a lot of good has come in the 21 months BUT a lot could have been better. Sad event either way.

"....added she was “selling the letter for a down payment on a house...."

Nobody is forcing her to buy a house. I didn't have a house at age 28. I didn't have anything close to a house at age 28.

When I was 28, times were pretty tough. I didn't have 2 nickels to rub together. I spent most of that decade on the brink of homelessness, never sure how I was going to pay basic bills at the end of the month, barely able to rent first a studio and then a 2-room apartment.

There are people out there who worked hard, sacrificed and saved for decades... and who have been robbed of everything we saved. Losing your job and health insurance is a pretty common story. Actually, many of us have been without one, the other, or both, for a long frikkin time.

and had a baby at 28. We lived in an apartment we rented in the Hudson valley. I ended up going back to work when I had to pay my rent using a cash advance on my credit card. It was really difficult as I didn't know anyone there and had little trust on who to take care of my baby. We had one car that didn't work very well that my husband was taking down to Rockland County on the Palisades everyday for work.

We were really broke. I got a job as a legal secretary making about $7.50 an hour. I hated that job because the attorneys were hotheads, throwing furniture when things didn't go their way.

My husband had made a deal with his parents-- they wanted us to stay in that area but we couldn't afford it-- so they insisted on giving him a small subsidy every month insisting that $200 would be enough to keep us -- it really wasn't. When his Vice President father sent us a bounced check, it had a cascading effect on our bank account. That is why I had to pay the rent with the credit card. After we moved upstate, things got much better. My stepfather gave my husband a referral to the union, he took the entrance tests and the placement tests. It turns out the non-union (ABC) apprenticeship was a full year behind the IBEW apprenticeship so he had to do an additional year. He graduated each year at the top of his class.

With him working more steady at better pay, I was able to go to nursing school after about 2 years. That is how we were able to save money (after graduation, I worked mad overtime) for an FHA fixed rate loan. Our starter house in the burbs was $82,000 in 1998. A little more pricey but we kept losing out whenever we made a bid on other homes in the area. Our son had completed a year of kindergarten in the city schools so entered first grade in the suburbs. We should have started him over as he was a year behind the kids in the new school district. I was well into my mid-30's when we finally had our own home.

Young adults are often impatient. They see what their parents have achieved not realizing that it took their whole lives to get there. The culture of convenience, of easy credit and instant gratification hasn't helped. This economy is very difficult but it has been hard for many people for a long time. It is not new. Sure, now it is the information jobs, the accountants, finance workers and lawyers that are getting affected. However it has been happening for large sectors of people in the past 25 years and who were told by those who still had it good to retrain, get a profession, a certification. It sucks for everyone now, as there is no where to turn.

Nor do many have a letter they can sell

"Yeah a lot of good has come in the 21 months BUT a lot could have been better. Sad event either way."

That is where the whatever comes in. Anytime you are capable of selling a letter for enough cash to put a down payment on a house then things are all right. I thought I was going to come in here and read about a tent city or a person living out of a car. Again, whatever.