85-Year-Old Woman And Disabled Children To Be Evicted

Marie Platt of 298 Mountain Ave., Springfield N.J. has exhausted two reverse mortgages. The mortgage company now owns the home she has lived in for 40 years and wants her out. She has been to the Union County court and obtained four eviction postponements since October, but on December 24th the sheriff arrived and told Marie he would return in February to carry out the eviction. She has been to numerous agencies and spoken with legal services, but no one has given her any hope.

Marie has only a small social security income - not even enough to pay her property taxes. She has no savings and struggles just to put food on the table. Her son Joe, 57, cannot work due to medical issues, her daughter Nina, 64, has fibromyalgia which keeps her in bed for much of the day. They have nowhere to go. They're on lists for subsidized housing, but the lists are years long.

Marie’s life has been a series of disasters for the last 50 years: In 1967 her husband had a heart attack and fell over dead while playing with the children; he had no life insurance due to being overweight. Marie sold their house to pay debts. Years later, another house she lived in burned to the ground. In 2014 her daughter Valerie, died while awaiting surgery.

I’ve set up a fundraiser on gofundme.com in the hope of raising enough money to get the family into a rental unit at least through the winter and to pay for food and heat.

https://www.gofundme.com/housi...