Jade, Tristan and Michelle

The New House on the Block: When Michelle Found Her Permanent Home

It was Halloween night and Michelle realized she’d made a mistake. She bought just one box of Rice Krispies Treats. That had always been enough before. Most years, the leftover treats or candy just sat in the kitchen afterward because hardly anybody came by to trick-or-treat anymore.

But this street was different.

“This street looked like 1988,” Michelle said later. “Every porch light was on. Kids everywhere.”

She ran out of candy in 30 minutes. She jumped in the car and drove to Walmart, hoping there was still something left on the shelves.

“We were the new house on the block,” she recalls. “I couldn’t turn my light off. I had to represent.”

For the first time in a long time, this was her neighborhood too. For years, Michelle and her family had been moving from place to place after life unraveled during the pandemic. Before that, she had owned a home. She bought it in 2016 after years of saving as a single mother raising two children. Then COVID hit. Michelle drove for Uber so she could keep a flexible schedule for her daughter Jade, who is autistic. When the economy shut down, Michelle had to sell the house.

After that came the years too many families are familiar with: higher rent and the constant feeling that stability was slipping further away no matter how hard you worked.

For Jade, every move was difficult.

“Any kind of change for Jade is very, very hard,” Michelle said.

There were long stretches where Michelle felt like she was just trying to keep the family afloat one day at a time.

“I knew I desperately needed to find a place that really would be forever,” she said. “Our next move was going to be our last move.”

Last October, that finally happened. Michelle and her 25-year-old son Tristan bought a Habitat Omaha home together in Benson, a neighborhood Michelle has loved her entire adult life. The house is almost 100 years old. Habitat restored it carefully, keeping much of the original character intact. Michelle talks about it the way people talk about places they once believed only existed for other families. A staircase nook perfect for a Christmas tree, a mantle for stockings, a kitchen big enough to breathe in.

For Jade, the stability changed something too. Michelle says her daughter has fewer meltdowns now. And she started making friends at school for the first time.

“When you have an autistic kid that’s always had social struggles and to have never had a friend before really,” Michelle said, “to come out and see her laughing with a group of kids was just… I can’t explain it.”

Today, Michelle’s mortgage payment is less than half of what she had been paying in rent. For the first time in years, she can think beyond next month.

And maybe that’s why Michelle still talks about Halloween the way she does. It was the first time in years she’d answered the door feeling certain she’d still be there next Halloween too.