Man Recovers From Losing Everything

On Sept. 14, a fire took most everything of what Jim Houk owned. Mobile home, destroyed. Furniture, gone. Clothing, ruined. The 1979 Coeur d’Alene High School graduate and former mill worker found himself in a place he never thought possible: Homeless and broke. “It’s been rough,” he said. Houk recalls walking out of the bathroom, seeing the flames later determined to be started on a mattress by a discarded cigarette, and fleeing. “I ran out of the house with no clothes on, I just grabbed a blanket,” he said. Other than singed hair when he tried to battle the blaze with a hose, Houk was physically OK. Mentally, emotionally, financially, not so much. The home was not insured/ Bill Buley , Coeur d’Alene Press. More here. (Coeur d’Alene Press photo: Jerome A. Pollos)

Question: Have you ever been homeless or close to homeless?