“He was very professional,” she recalled about their eviction as part of the foreclosure on their home of nine years. “You could tell he didn’t relish it. He was just doing his job.”
That hardly took the sting out of being forced to leave their Belmont neighborhood home, where the Guirinos were raising their three-year-old grandson, Elijah.
It wasn’t until after their Memorial Day garage sale that Shelly broke down. “So many memories,” she said.
After the initial panic — “Who the hell,” Vince asked, “is going to rent to us?” — the couple found a rental home in Riverside.
“This is our summer vacation; we don’t need to go anywhere else,” Shelly observed, sweeping her arms to encompass the quarter-acre lot complete with above-ground pool, swing set and garden patch. “Elijah loves it, and that’s the main thing.”
The couple’s struggle to save their home was featured in the Dayton Daily News on Feb. 15 as part of the newspaper’s After the Layoff series, which focuses on people coping with a job loss.
At the time, they hoped they could save their home with the help of The HomeOwnership Center of Dayton. But the months went by with no promise of new jobs, and the Guirinos became another casualty of the foreclosure crisis.
“It didn’t matter how much we loved our property, or how well we took care of it,” Shelly said. “We had to be out in three weeks.”
They looked at a couple of rental houses Vince described as “cracker boxes,” but fell in love with a small Riverside home with a gigantic back yard. “Don’t bother with a credit check,” Vince told the landlord. “Why don’t you follow me home and see how I take care of my own house?”
After inspecting the Guirinos’ immaculate Cape Cod, the landlord called the next morning and declared, “It’s yours.”
“We love it, and we feel very lucky,” Shelly said.
“We downsized on the house, but upsized on the yard,” Vince added.
Their characteristic good cheer can’t erase their anxiety for the future. They have lost their health insurance. “They wanted me to pay $955 for COBRA out of my $1,000 unemployment check,” Shelly said. Fortunately, Elijah is covered.
When Shelly expresses optimism about finding another job, Vince argues, “You’ve got Wright-Pat laying off people who have worked there for 20 years, and you’re getting a job in this town?” Their search for employment continues.
For now, they’re getting by on their unemployment as well as support from Vince’s mother, Carol Karr, who lives in Kansas. “Thank God for mothers,” Vince said. “My mom has been an angel. She has been right with us all the way. We talk two or three times a day.”
Shelly winked, adding, “I’m not allowed to call him a mama’s boy. Seriously, though, she has been wonderful to us.”
For now they’re enjoying down time with their grandchildren, including Elijah. “He has adjusted so good,” Shelly said. “He keeps calling people to come over to our new house.
He doesn’t understand why they had to leave the old house.”
Some days, Shelly and Vince have trouble believing it themselves. They fought long and hard to keep their home, and they remain grateful to The HomeOwnership Center of Greater Dayton and their housing counselor, Gwen Cooper. Without the agency’s help, they would have lost their home months earlier.
“If I hit the Lottery, I would give the money to Gwen to help people in our situation,” Shelly said.
That’s not likely. These days, there’s no spare money, not for health insurance and definitely not for Lottery tickets.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author