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TOLEDO—Looking up, there are bare studs where the kitchen ceiling should be. Fronts of drawers in the room look as if they have been missing for quite a while. The broiler drawer under the oven is held up only on one side.
The dining room table isn’t large enough to seat the seven adult-size people and one infant who inhabit the Clark household. The living room seats four. Their three bedrooms and dormer are even more crowded, and holes in these ceilings are patched with cardboard and duct tape.
Sue and Brian Clark have not had extra cash to spend on keeping up with repairs of the home built in 1925. Instead, their financial resources and love are poured into fostering and adopting four special needs children.
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| The Clark family, from left, Tricia, 20, Sue, Brendan, 18, Melissa, 21,
Connor, 5 months, Brian and Ashley, 17, were interviewed for Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition but were not chosen for the build in Toledo this
week. (Chronicle photo by Angela Kessler) |
The roof leaks. The sewer line between the house and road is constantly backing up into the house and garage, which is unusable because of disrepair.
The family belongs to Toledo Our Lady of Perpetual Help; he’s been a teacher at Central Catholic High School for the past 28 years while she has stayed home to be primary caregiver to an estimated 80 to 100 foster children over 19 years. Currently, the Clark household includes their four children — Melissa, 21, Tricia, 20, Brendan, 18, and Ashley, 17 — and their 5-month-old grandson, Conner and a 20-year-old homeless high school dropout, who is now back in school.
Their medical bills are never ending with countless trips to specialists and the cost of medication. Their four adopted children have needs that range from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to bi-polar disorder and a host of other difficulties in between. While they range from age 17 to 21, their emotional and social development is much younger and the Clarks don’t expect them to be able to live on their own.
Yet this family was not the one chosen to be featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition as it films an episode this week in Toledo.
“There’s a lot of people who need it worse than us and there are a lot of people who have more compelling stories than us,” Mr. Clark says.
“We’re thrilled we got as far as we did,” Mrs. Clark adds.
The Journey
Several years ago the Clarks were encouraged by friends to apply to Extreme Makeover, which they did. Part of the motivation for applying to the show was so they would have the room to continue being foster parents.
Mr. Clark says he was never thrilled about applying and Mrs. Clark was the major force behind the process.
“I know we can’t afford to replace the roof,” Mrs. Clark says about why she wanted to apply to the show. “The house is shabby, it’s shot. Kids are hard on a house and our kids are harder.”
As the house stands, their family is already crowded to the point where the Clarks had to give up fostering because “you can’t put babies in with teenagers,” Mr. Clark says.
After submitting the application and a video, the Clarks heard nothing and figured the whole thing was over.
“Nothing ever came of it that I knew of,” Mr. Clark says. “And then last April a secret petition started,” he says with a chuckle. “I laugh because many people knew it and they all agreed to keep it a secret. They signed this petition, and they sent it around, and I learned about it when Home Makeover contacted us. They contacted us because of that petition.”
The online petition garnered nearly 5,000 signatures and comments from the community encouraging the Extreme Makeover producers to choose the Clark family for its show.
As a result of the online petition, staff from Extreme Makeover contacted the Clarks and asked them to re-apply. Then this past May a camera crew and producer toured the home and interviewed the family. During the summer, Mr. Clark says he was told his family was one of 26 in the state of Ohio being considered.
“They told us they would tell us no if it was a definite no, and we didn’t hear anything,” Mr. Clark says. Then they learned about the show doing a build in Cincinnati over the summer and at that point he felt their chances were over.
“Am I going to be disappointed if I don’t get a new house? Of course, I’d love a new house and I’d love a trip to Disney World,” Mr. Clark says. But what has become even better than a house, he says, is the comments from the petition.
“What I’m going to take with me for the rest of my life is that about 5,000 people thought enough of us to form a petition — and they didn’t just sign it, they wrote stuff on it. And that’s what’s going to make me feel good every day,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Clark adds about getting a new house. “People have already done stuff for us. That petition and what they wrote is worth more than money.”
Household Needs
Since applying to the show, Mrs. Clark has found an online community of other people who have applied. After hearing their stories, she feels even less deserving than some of the others waiting for a home. One family lives in Cleveland and has lived in hotels since their own home burned down three years ago.
There are other stories of families the Clarks feel are in more dire need than they. Mrs. Clark is thankful they have a house to call their own and they live in a nice neighborhood.
But the fact remains that the 83-year-old house has a lot of work that needs to be done that the Clarks cannot afford.
The primary need is a new roof. With the help of her friend in Cleveland, the Clarks may have the opportunity to have roofing materials donated. They are now searching for someone who can help transport and install the materials on their home.
The other big issue they are concerned about is the sewer line, which they don’t even know how much it will cost to be repaired or replaced. For a while, they were having to call Roto Rooter to the house every three to four months, Mrs. Clark says, adding it would cost anywhere from $350 to $1,000 for each service call.
Then there’s the ceilings throughout the home and kitchen they’d like to remodel.
The projects will continue to wait while the Clarks continue to care for their children.
“We don’t consider it extraordinary; we consider it the right thing to do,” Mrs. Clark says. “Other people have it rough too. I don’t like to make a big deal about it because there’s a lot of other foster parents in the city and we’re probably not the only ones with a bad roof.”
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