How a single mom of 3 who once experienced homelessness used her child tax credit payments to buy her first home

• Ilea Hymes experienced homelessness in Arkansas with her three children.
• She started saving her child tax credit payments for a down payment on her first home.
• With government assistance, Hymes and her family moved into their first home in September 2021.

While living in Arkansas in the early 2000s, single mom Ilea Hymes experienced homelessness.

Though Hymes worked at a local school full-time, she was not able to afford move-in costs for an apartment alongside childcare and food costs for her three children, Calea, Connell, and Chandlyr.

Hymes tells Insider, “I was working a steady job through the hardest times of not having a home. I did not qualify for Section 8 assistance, but I did get help through food stamps.”

This difficult experience prompted Hymes to move her family to Memphis, Tennessee, where she could pursue a stable career with a government agency. But each time her family got settled in a new apartment, her landlord would raise the rent by $150 to $200 a month, prompting them to move again.

“When my oldest daughter asked, ‘Momma, can we stop moving?’ I had set it in my head to be stable for my kids, got my credit score up, and focused on a goal,” says Hymes. Her goal was to save at least $20,000 for a down payment on her first home so that she and her kids would never have to experience homelessness again.

Hymes started saving her annual child tax credit payments

Parents in the US earning below a certain income threshold receive an annual child tax credit of $2,000 per child (it was temporarily raised in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic). Each year beginning in 2018, Hymes put that tax credit into a separate savings account dedicated to her family’s down payment fund.

She says, “For the past three tax years, I have been saving up the $5,000 to $8,000 I received for each kid. I was putting that away so I could purchase a home because I came from a position where I lived on the streets.” The money in that savings account helped Hymes stay focused on her end goal of providing her children with stable housing.

She adds, “I was homeless for a while, and you know, when you’re homeless, you just think differently when you get out of that situation and you have kids.”

During the pandemic, she was forced to use some of her home savings

Hymes was an essential worker who worked full-time in a government office throughout the pandemic, which meant that she also had to adjust to the rising price of gas. Her landlord raised the rent, once again, by $250 a month, which prompted the family to move to a new building.

She didn’t want to touch her home savings, but soon, she felt like she had no choice but to use that money to make ends meet. She had to dip into her home savings to cover first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit for the new building.

On top of all of that, Hymes was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful uterine condition that needs urgent medical attention. Hymes says, “I have rescheduled doctor’s appointments because of bills.” Sometimes, she even rescheduled doctor’s appointments so that they fell in a pay period when she could more comfortably afford to pay for her care.

Her only saving grace was the monthly child tax credit payments disbursed to parents during the pandemic under President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. She received $750 per month for each child, however, the pandemic still made a huge dent in her down payment savings.

She qualified for a government down payment assistance program

With her down payment savings depleted, Hymes turned to the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, which helps first-time homebuyers access low-interest mortgages while covering the down payment and closing costs.

According to records viewed by Insider, Hymes was provided a 30-year mortgage with an interest rate of 3.375%. She was given $11,999.50 for the down payment and closing costs, and she had to bring $500 in “earnest money” to close the deal. The Hymes family moved into their first home in September 2021.

Hymes says she feels grateful for the city of Memphis, where she had the opportunity to rebuild her life and finally achieve her dream of becoming a homeowner. She also credits government programs, like the monthly CTC payments parents received during the pandemic, for her success.

Hymes says of the monthly CTC payments, “Everyone should have their basic needs met, like electric, gas, rent, mortgage, and their car note. But there are just a few things that you need to live a happy and sane life, and I believe that people need that extra financial support to help them move forward and keep them motivated.”