KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Keela Pryor's dream came true 30 years ago. She and her husband bought a house. They were together for almost four decades.
Pryor met her husband after a previous abusive marriage and said he was the love of her life. They did many things together, and they relied on one another. She said their home was important to them.
"It's not nothing fancy. But it's what we built together," Pryor said.
But over the past year, it's been one problem after another for Pryor. During a storm last year, a tree fell on her house and water came in. Then her husband started working on it.
"Got all the way up to the air conditioner unit and then he died in August," Pryor said. "Where the tree hit the house, the roof started leaking real bad."
For the last eight months, water has been eating wood away, and the tree also tore down some of the house's electrical system. With so many issues, the health risk can be huge.
"Homes that are in bad repair, we refer to them often as 'sick homes,' and those cause people to be sick, essentially," said Jeffrey Vincent, the Community Action Committee director of housing and energy. "CAC has a number of grants that we administer. Our Home Repairs, specifically, is through HUD programs that come through Knox County and the city of Knoxville. And so we serve as CAC serves as a subgrantee."
While there's help for homeowners like Pryor, there are often long waiting lists and limited funding. At CAC, the waiting list has about 300 people. But Vincent said CAC will still try to help, even if it means helping people find other resources.
"A lot of the homes are older, and there's just a whole lot more demand for repairs than there are resources for people that are unable to afford those repairs," Vincent said.
One of Pryor's biggest challenges is her battle with her health. She said when her husband died it was a shock because he was healthier than her. Then he got COVID-19, which affected his heart and led to his death.
"I have stage-four lung cancer. It metastasized to my brain. They radiated the brain one and they got it. They took my bad lung out," Pryor said.
After she reached out and applied to some of the local services, she posted on Facebook that she needed help. People rallied to give tips for resources, but unfortunately, resources like CAC explained they aren't available in an instant. She said she has to sleep knowing a snake can enter her home because of holes that leave her home exposed.
It's been hard but she wants to save her dream, she wants to save her home. But, she also carries a big fear.
"That my house is gonna fall apart and I will have nowhere to live," Pryor said. "Hope we can get it fixed because he worked so hard to buy this for us. And I know it's not a lot, but it's everything to me."