"To be honest with you, I'm a little concerned," said Ronnie Watson, 42, who was able to buy a cozy Arlington duplex in 2000 after he and his teenage son spent months in a homeless shelter and a rat-infested apartment. "We are living paycheck to paycheck."
He has to work overtime as a meter reader to pay their basic bills, he said. Anything extra -- such as his son's yearbook and cap and gown for his coming graduation from Washington-Lee High School -- is a stretch. Watson is praying that his house payment, already up from $363 to $442 in recent months, won't top $500.
Kesha James, with daughters Khaliah, 7, and Kiara, 1, in her Habitat for Humanity home in Alexandria, works seven days a week to make ends meet.
(Dudley M. Brooks -- The Washington Post)
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"That's a whole lot to me," he said.
Kesha James had never known a home until she and her new husband, Ian Roger James, 35, moved into their townhouse in Old Town in 1999. They had poured more than 500 hours of "sweat equity" into the project, helping build it, working alongside Habitat volunteers putting up siding and painting. They were able to buy the house -- then appraised at $190,000 -- with a zero-interest mortgage, for $90,000.
James, a District native, had grown up shuttled among relatives by her widowed mother, who struggled with a gambling addition.
She ended up in an Alexandria homeless shelter in 1997 with her first child, Kaya, now 9, after fleeing an abusive relationship. A social worker there was impressed by James's flinty determination to keep taking classes at Strayer University even while living in the shelter. She urged James to apply for the Habitat house.
By then she was with Roger James and the couple had two more children, so having a house seemed like a miracle. Once they were settled, she even bought the piano she had dreamed of, a $300 used upright.
Things were happy for a long time, but 18 months ago the monthly payments started rising fast, as home values in Northern Virginia exploded, doubling since 2000.
There was less and less money for such things as Girl Scouts and dance club for her daughters, things she desperately wants them to have. She was working full time for a homeless advocacy group in Arlington, making $28,000 a year. She added Saturday and Sunday overnight shifts as a monitor at a homeless shelter to bring in extra money. School fell by the wayside.
Her husband started saying maybe the house wasn't such a good idea. One day last fall, they had another fight about money.
"I said, 'Roger, why don't you just leave?' " James recalled. "I'd said that before and nothing had happened, but this time he said, 'I think I'm going to get my own place.' And then I was thinking, 'What have I done?' "
He decamped to Pennsylvania near Hagerstown, leaving James to struggle with her mortgage payments and the girls, although he visits frequently. She pays $954 a month in house payment, $493 of that for taxes and insurance. If the city can't provide a tax break, her payment is expected to increase another 30 percent in July.
James said her husband wants the family to reunite up north, but James wants to stay in her house.
"That's my house I helped build," she said. "I put my heart and soul into it, so I'm going to fight."
