“Are you going to make me guess?” he asked when I didn’t say anything else. “Fine. You’re going to become a stripper. Always knew you had it in you. Congratulations, man.”
I rolled my eyes and flipped him off, but then I laid out my idea for him. While I spoke, he looked surprised at first but quickly started looking as excited as I felt. “You’re serious? You’re really considering doing this?”
“I am, but I wanted to run it by you first before I speak to Larisa about it. My idea is to start slowly and find properties in decent areas that are going at a good price. We’ll fix whatever needs to be fixed, upgrade them, and then rent them out to families at prices they’ll be able to afford for places they might not otherwise have been able to. In the meantime, hopefully that’ll help in efforts to rejuvenate certain areas and to get people into good, safe housing that’s nice, too.”
He scratched his chin, seemingly deep in thought. “Look, it’s not a business model you’re going to make a ton off of, but I can help you choose the right areas and it’d definitely make a big difference. If you see some of the hovels people are expected to pay exorbitant amounts for in rent, you’d know why it’s such a fucking great thing to get involved with.”
I grinned so wide, my cheeks hurt a little. “So it’s safe to say it’s a good idea then?”
“It’s a great idea.” He nodded enthusiastically. “It’ll be a lot of work, though. If you do it properly, you won’t be able to stay ahead and work fast enough to get families who deserve better in there, but if you’re up for it and you’re willing to make the commitment, I’ll help in any way I can.”
“I’m up for it,” I said without any hesitation whatsoever. “Before I pitch it to Larisa, I’m probably going to need some more information. Think you can walk me through it?”
“Yeah. Definitely.” He stood, then checked his watch before he jerked his head in the direction of his study. “We’ve got a bit of time before Bart and Shawn are supposed to get here. Steph and I have been working on our project from home a lot, so I’ve got a ton of stuff you can look at right here. Want to get started?”
I got up. “Lead the way.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt that sense of purpose I’d been missing sneaking into my chest. This was it. This was what I’d been waiting for, and the best part of all was that the players were already on the board.
I already had Jeremiah to guide me, Larisa and the company we’d been working with on the house to do the renovations, and the money we needed to get started. It felt like it was meant to be. Plus, it had the added benefit of being something good I could do, something meaningful that would really make a difference in so many lives.
While I’d never really been passionate about housing projects before, I was passionate about helping. I just didn’t have enough information before to develop a passion for housing in particular. But as Jeremiah clicked through some of the pictures they’d taken of where and how people lived and showed me some of the data they’d gathered, I felt the first stirrings of passion for this particular cause.
I might not be able to change the living situation of every person in the city singlehandedly, but I could join the legion of people already working on it. If the only way to eat an elephant was to take one bite at a time, at least I’d picked up my fork. I could tackle this challenge and I could succeed.
All I needed to do was get started.