A family on the verge of homelessness due to foreclosure asked a Cook
County Circuit judge on Tuesday if he would turn down TCF National
Bank’s Motion for Order of Possession for their house.
Domynika
Pawelczak-Gutierrez, 36, who has lived with her family in Chicago’s
Garfield Ridge neighborhood on the 5300 block of South Major Avenue for
eight years, said the bank feels entitled to do business as usual, when
the conditions under which she is losing her home are “anything but
usual.”
The same week her husband lost his job in 2009, her teenage daughter, Hilary, underwent spinal fusion surgery, which forced her to be bedridden and required home care for roughly two
months. Pawelczak-Gutierrez said the family was forced to rely on her income as a
server to live and pay for Hilary’s medical expenses.
“We’ve
been through a lot — I started using credit cards and getting myself more
and more in debt. But we’re just starting to start over,” said
Pawelczak-Gutierrez, who added that she filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
“I’m running out of options, I don’t know where we’ll go or what we’ll
do if we lose the house.”