Mark KennedyView other columns by Mark Kennedy
Justin Carroll and Tammy Harris are homeless but not helpless.
A fire that destroyed Tammy's Rossville trailer last month has left the couple scrambling for shelter and living hand to mouth. When I spoke with them last week at a Taco Bell in East Ridge, they had just checked out of a motel room they had rented with money they got from selling scrap metal.
The kids were staying with family, they said. Meanwhile, 30-year-old Justin, who is between jobs, was thinking about selling plasma that day to pay for a campsite.
Tammy, a 29-year-old divorced mother of four and college student, has a photo of the burned house on her mobile phone. It looks like it was hit by a bomb.
She explained what happened: On the morning of Tuesday, May 3, Tammy says she put a load of clothes in her washing machine and left her house for an interview seeking an internship with her local police department. She was a couple of miles down the road when her mother, who was babysitting two of Tammy's children, called her cellphone with a frantic message.
"The house is on fire!" she said.
"What do you mean, the house is on fire?" Tammy exclaimed.
"Smoke's everywhere," her mother reported.
In the few minutes it took Tammy to race home, the little trailer was set ablaze. Her mother said by the time she got the kids out the windows already had blown out of the trailer. The shock of seeing the scene caused Tammy to have a seizure, she said.
Meanwhile, the fire engulfed the trailer so quickly little was salvaged. Burned were the kids' baby pictures, new bicycles, all the family's household goods and a pet tarantula. The home was uninsured.
"If the fire was a movie it would have been called 'Gone in 60 Seconds,'" Justin said.
"I've raised four children in that home," Tammy said. "It's the only home they've ever known."
Justin explained that he and Tammy have been together for a couple of years. They first knew each other in elementary school in Chattanooga Valley.
Justin said he was recently hurt while working as a temp at a machine shop. Meanwhile, Tammy recently earned her GED. She has enrolled in Georgia Northwestern Technical College in Rome, Ga., and has visions of a career in criminal justice. Together, they have five children from previous relationships, all under age 12.
Most of the housing options they have looked at are for a maximum of four people, they said. When all the children are together, they need shelter for seven. They have a tent, but it will only sleep three. Sometimes they sleep in a public park.
Justin said he and Tammy went to Wal-Mart shortly after the fire and became emotional when they realized they didn't even have the basic necessities such as toothpaste and deodorant. They got help from the Red Cross for a few days, but the resources soon ran out.
"I'm trying to find work now, but I don't have the proper clothes," Justin said. "Every day I wake up in a hotel or a tent, and it's like, 'Now what?'"
I checked back with the pair Tuesday. They had found enough money for two more days of lodging. Justin said he is looking for work, and Tammy is hunting for an affordable apartment.
Meanwhile, they mark time in the ranks of the homeless.
All it took was a small electrical fire to put them on the streets.
Tammy is hoping for help to find shelter for her family. She has set up a GoFundMe account at www.gofundme.com/239u744. She also gets mail delivery at 11 Walter's Lane, Rossville, Ga. 30741.
"[My children] lost everything they had," Tammy wrote on her GoFundMe page.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or call 423-757-6645.