A family of five needs help replacing what was lost after a forced move | Wish List

The Enquirer and United Way of Greater Cincinnati have joined forces for the 36th year to help families in need with the Wish List program. This is the second of eight stories that will appear this month.  

The letter arrived last summer. It notified Carmen Bihl, a 35-year-old single parent of four, that her family had to leave the Florence mobile home park where they had lived for 10 years.

Carmen was surprised and confused. She works full-time as a traveling phlebotomist, and although she had long struggled to make ends meet, she said she had always paid her rent. After a court hearing, she was given seven days to move out.

“I was stressed out,” she said. “I never had this happen.”

Her stress was magnified by all the tasks before her – juggling her work schedule, searching for a new place to live, determining where her children would go to school and removing her family’s belongings from the mobile home.

“I rented a U-Haul truck, and I tried to get as many big things as I could,” Carmen said. A couch. A kitchen table. A couple of chairs. “I didn’t even touch (the children’s) rooms. I didn’t have time. I just did what I could.”

Beds and all her children’s toys and playthings were left behind. So, too, were most of the family’s clothes, including those she had recently bought for her children. Now, she said, she has nothing to show for those purchases except credit card debt.

Also left behind: a newly purchased stove and refrigerator. “I spent all that money on them, and I lost it. That was upsetting.”

For years, she has stretched her dollars by making monthly visits to Be Concerned, a Covington food pantry. “Carmen always finds a way to communicate with the pantry team about the ups and downs of her life, and to be in good spirits and positive during her monthly appointments,” Andrew Brunsman of Be Concerned wrote when nominating Carmen’s family for the Wish List.

But the forced move has put her good spirits to the test like never before. “The last few months have just been really hard,” Carmen said. “I’ve never gone through something so stressful in my life.”

That’s also true for her children: Deven, 15; Dylen, 14; Jordan, 12; and Kylie, 10. Kylie said she was upset, "because I lost a lot of my friends at my old school.”

While Carmen sought new housing, she and her children temporarily moved into her mother’s home in Fort Mitchell, which is in the Beechwood Independent School District. Carmen enrolled her children there. A few weeks later, an apartment became available across the street from Carmen’s mother, and the family moved in.

With so many of their belongings gone, the new place does not feel much like home. Because they don’t have beds, the older children still often sleep at their grandmother’s. Carmen’s wish is for beds, dressers, furnishings and clothing. In addition, her wish is for toys and a scooter to replace items left behind.  

Carmen's wish: Beds, dressers, furnishings, toys, a scooter and clothing for their family of five.

Estimated cost: $5,000

How to help    

Donations can be made online at www.uwgc.org/wishlist. You can also mail donations to: United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Attn: Wish List Pledge Processing, P.O. Box 632840, Cincinnati, OH 45263-2840. Please include “Wish List” in the memo line on checks.

John Johnston is the content writer at United Way and a former Enquirer reporter.