Help out
To learn more about the Denham family or to donate to the GoFundMe Smith started on their behalf, visit gofundme.com and search “A Home for the Denham Family.”
It was Thanksgiving Day in 2013 when Rebekah and Joshuah Denham purchased the 22-foot camper they knew they would need to call home for a while.
It wasn’t big enough, but it was cheap, and the Craigslist seller promised them the roof didn’t leak. Looking back on it, Rebekah said, the tarps inside should have been a bigger red flag. But the family – four children in tow – knew they were going to be evicted shortly, and the need for shelter outweighed their ability to be picky.
After all, Joshua had recently inherited a piece of property, and they could live in the camper while repairing the ancient house there, rather than relying on others or asking for help.
“But the next time we went [to the camper], after preparing it with beds for the children, blankets and some of our stuff, it was flooded. Everything was soaked,” Rebekah said. ” We couldn’t actually move in until spring of the next year.”
Rebekah’s wish for her children is the same as any mother’s: for them to be warm, safe and happy and for them to grow into good, successful people. As she looks around the camper with its perpetual leaky roof, sustained with tarps and without electricity, the promise of the future is what keeps her going, she said.
The Denhams – who applied for Section 8 housing several years ago – and their children, Jacob, 14, Savannah, 12, Shaun, 9, and Hayleigh, 6, have now lived in the broken-down camper on the overgrown, inherited property off Highway 58 for nearly two years.
Rebekah and Joshua had steady jobs, but they lost them. They had two cars, but one broke down beyond repair. They had a house in Lookout Valley, but they were evicted after the loss of Joshua’s management level job at Wal-Mart, where he had dedicated more than 13 years of his career.
They had better plans for their family, but they had to put those on hold. They had faith, Rebekah said, and she is fighting hard not to lose it.
“It sucks. It sucks every day. But there are good days along with the bad,” she said. “I hope my kids learn from this and become better people in the future. They still have chores, they still have a bedtime, they still have to mind. I try to keep them as normal as possible.
“Every time it rains, I hold my breath because I never know how long this roof is going to hold up. I just kind of pray.”
Now, Rebekah wonders if her prayers have been answered, in the form of Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office Deputy William Valenzuela and a stranger in Atlanta who heard her story, reached out and offered to start a GoFundMe campaign.
Rebecca Smith, a former Chattanooga resident, said she saw a news story about the family of six and the Christmas presents Deputy Valenzuela brought them and, as a fellow mother, felt compelled to take action.
“I have three children myself and I’ve struggled,” Smith said. “When I reached out to her, you could just hear the despair in her voice. I used to work two jobs and walk to work in the rain to care for my kids. To feel like you have nowhere else to turn is unlike anything else.”
So Smith has opened a GoFundMe campaign to help the Denhams begin to move forward. But so far, the campaign has had a hard time gaining momentum.
Sharing the page attached to their story – and fundraising goal – is hard, Rebekah said. She is only asking for help because she wants to be able to give her children the kind of warm home they deserve.
“I just want people to know we aren’t bad people,” she said. “We had dreams and hopes and plans and expectations and they just aren’t working out the way I thought they would. I don’t like asking for help.
“I don’t want a handout. I just want my children to have some kind of home in the future that they can come home to after school and be proud of.”
Email Gabrielle Chevalier at gchevalier@timesfreepress.com.