Keep Zi's House!

My friend Zi (name has been changed) recently posted about some problems she's been having. I can't even imagine being in this position myself, let alone having 2 kids and a husband to take care of! She says:

"As most of you know, my husband was laid off the first week of February. He had worked for the same company for years and had worked previously with his bosses so they had a lot of history. They actually recruited him from another job with the promise of fully-paid health insurance and a manager position that paid hourly, not salary. Fast forward to September 2008 when they decided to change the game due to the economy. Instead of working 55 hours a week, they cut him back to 45 hours a week, which took about $200 off his paycheck each week. So we started to fall behind on bills. Then in December 2008, they told him that he would have to pay for half his health insurance, to the tune of $160 a week. So we fell even farther behind on bills, even though I was working full time as well. Well, after speaking to them repeatedly and trying to work something out he was laid off. They called it "restructering". I call it pretty fucking shitty. 6 weeks without him not working really took a toll on our finances. I did the best I could, but the bills just kept piling up even though I was making partial payments. When he finally got a job, he immediately set up a payment plan with our mortgage company so that we wouldn't lose our house. For 2 months he never brought home a paycheck, it went right to our mortgage payments. He had to cancel one payment so that he could send some money to other bills and when he called them back to make a payment and set up another group of automatic withdrawels from his bank account, he was told that our account had been suspended and that we would have to wait to get the notice in the mail. Two weeks was all it took for them to make the big decision on us. We were foreclosed on. We have until July 17th to send the attorney handling our foreclosure $9600.00 to reinstate our mortgage or they will auction our house off on July 20th. As of right now, we still need to pull over $6000.00 out of our asses and it isn't looking good. I'm freaking out...crying a lot and trying to not let the kids know that we will most likely be moving in 2 weeks."

So to sum up: Her husband was lied to repeatedly by his company, causing him to lose money, and then is laid off. Even though Zi is working, the money from her paycheck goes towards paying part of bills and food, not mortgage. Her husband gets a new job and his paychecks go to mortgage. Bills come fully due, and husband has to cancel a mortgage payment to pay bills. Even though he calls them back promptly to make the payment, he is told he must wait until they decide what to do about him. They decide to foreclose unless he can pay a certain amount to keep his home.

This girl is a dear friend of mine, and my heart aches to hear what her little family is going through. I keep thinking I must be able to do something, yet I am only a college student with financial problems of my own. I can afford to give a little, but not enough.

So I turn to you, my dear friends. Since you know me, you know how rare it is that I get involved in this sort of thing. Heck, I don't even forward emails without checking them out first! ;D But this is serious. PLEASE, if you can, give a little. All this money goes directly to Zi and her family. I hope that even if we don't get enough to keep them in their house, we can do what we can to ease the burden for them. Perhaps our donations can pay for groceries or pay a bit of an outstanding bill. My friends, I know you to be empathic people, and I don't know what more to say. Every little bit helps, and please keep them in your prayers.