HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/17/2018 Item 11, Henderson
Purrington, Teresa
From:emoem <deb.kirk.henderson@gmail.com>
Sent:Monday, July 16, 2018 8:31 PM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:San Luis Ranch
PLEASE READ THIS!
Dear Mayor Harmon and city council members, I want to come home! My husband and I have lived in San Luis Obispo
for 21 years. He worked as a director of a non-profit serving our community and I was a private music teacher. We
raised our two sons in San Luis Obispo for their entire lives. Not being able to afford to buy a home even on our dual,
mid-level incomes has made our lives difficult and contributed to the need for us to move out of state. Even after my
husband left the non-profit world to work for a local start-up company in San Luis (to help make it possible for us to
afford a home in the community where we both worked), we were still struggling to save enough money for a down
payment. We needed more than a condo. We needed a home that would be big enough for us, plus our two young
adult sons and our dog.
One year ago this month, my husband and I relocated to Dallas to follow a better paying career and also to buy
a home in downtown Dallas. My sons, who were 18 and 20 years old at the time, chose to stay in SLO in the home we
were renting. It was a heart-wrenching separation. We left with the full hope and intention of building enough equity in
Texas to be able to return to San Luis Obispo to buy a home and reunite with our adult children and the community that
will forever be my home. San Luis Ranch and more projects like them increase the chances of this happening for our
family.
My children want to stay and own homes in the town where they grew up. I want to be able to return there so
that I can be near them as they marry and have children, but am only willing to do so if I can buy a home. Renting for 21
years is long enough. It was worth it to be able to raise my children in San Luis Obispo, but now I must consider saving
for retirement and building equity. IF I had been able to buy sooner we may never have been forced to leave and be
separate.
Please approve San Luis Ranch so my family has more options and possibilities to allow us to return and stay in the place
we know and love as home.
Save me from Texas. I am a Pacific girl.
Thank you for your consideration,
Deborah Kirk Henderson
(805)234-2304
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