Katie Clancy is a successful realtor, a sought-after motivational speaker, co-host of the popular YouTube series “What’s Good Cape Cod?”, and the self-described “happiest person in real estate.”
While she is seemingly living an idyllic life, it wasn’t always this way. In July, Clancy shared her heart-wrenching story to nearly 200 guests at our Oysters & Champagne fundraiser at the Wequassett Resort.
In 2006, Clancy was preparing to leave behind her teaching career and embark on a new one in the real estate industry. “I planned carefully. I kept my day job. I kept my benefits for a year and we had the security of my husband’s very successful contracting business,” Clancy said. “But as Woody Allen says, ‘If you want to make god laugh, tell him about your plans.’ Within a year, my benefits ran out. I had sold one house and the entire economy collapsed on the back of the housing industry taking my husband’s business with it. Money got very tight, very quickly.”
This century’s Great Recession nearly took the Clancy’s home, where they were raising four children.
First, Clancy took a loan from her parents to help in the short term. Then, when things got worse, she accepted charity from her church just to purchase groceries.
“Christmas was coming and we hadn’t even found the money to buy a tree much less presents,” Clancy said. “The fear and the shame of it all nearly consumed our marriage.
At her lowest point, the bank was threatening to foreclose on her home. That’s when she reached out to Housing Assistance and learned about the possibility of modifying the loan on her home. “It was tedious. It was time consuming, but with the compassionate partnership of our HAC counselor, I got through it,” Clancy said. “During a time when I felt my entire life was out of my control, Housing Assistance gave me the gift of a plan that I could execute to help myself. They treated me like a human being, not an account number.”
While she and her husband were able to modify their loan and save their home with our help, Clancy said, “the most lasting gift I got from Housing Assistance was my dignity.”
It’s why prior to the event, Clancy said, she is so invested and committed to supporting Housing Assistance’s work.
Yes, her situation was difficult, but not insurmountable. “Mine was the easiest housing crisis out there, if you had to get one. …Can you imagine what it takes to be the first in your family to break out of poverty? Or to go from living in your car to figuring out how to secure housing?” Clancy asked. “It begins with dignity – dignity is the soil in which the seeds of self-sufficiency are sown.”
Click here to learn how Katie Clancy is giving back and supporting Housing Assistance’s work through her collaboration on the Cape House Blend with Three Fins Coffee.
