This is a true story of one of our clients. To protect their privacy we have changed their names and location of their home.

The Thompsons had lived in the little blue house on Main Street for almost a decade. It wasn’t extravagant, but it was home. The kitchen still held the faint scent of the first batch of cookies Sarah baked when they moved in. The growth chart on the hallway wall marked the kids’ heights over the years—each pencil line a memory. But now, foreclosure loomed like a storm cloud.

Mark Thompson had lost his job in the oil industry. His wife, Sarah, worked part-time at a local clinic, but with two kids and mounting bills, they had fallen behind on their mortgage. The notices started coming. Then the phone calls. And now, a final warning: the bank would seize the house in 30 days.

Mark sat at the kitchen table one evening, unopened bills piled in front of him, head in his hands.

“I feel like I failed them,” he muttered to Sarah, nodding toward the kids playing in the living room.

“You haven’t failed anyone,” Sarah said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “But we need help. We can’t do this alone anymore.”

That night, Sarah reached out to a co-worker that had used our services. She hesitantly emailed us. We responded right away and went to meet Sarah and her family.

Mark and Sarah exchanged stunned glances when we discussed all the different options we could offer.

Through a combination of emergency funding through a private loan and our intervention for a negotiated forbearance plan with their lender, we helped cover the past-due payments and restructure their mortgage to make it affordable.

By the time school started in the fall, the foreclosure threat was lifted. Mark had landed a new job—less money than before, but stable. The kids, unaware of how close they’d come to losing everything, returned to their routines.

One evening, Mark stood by the growth chart in the hallway, pencil in hand.

“C’mon, Jake,” he said to his son, smiling. “Time to see how much you’ve grown.”

As Jake pressed his back against the wall, Sarah caught Mark’s eye and mouthed, We made it.

The little blue house on Main Street stayed theirs—not because of luck, but because they reached out, and we reached back.