On the night Tommy Reed turned fourteen, he was thrown out of his Ohio home with a backpack, a flashlight, and $12.63. After hours of walking, he found a condemned house marked: $5 transfer fee—part of a city program letting anyone assume liability and attempt restoration.
The next morning, he went to City Hall and bought it. No minimum age rule stopped him. By afternoon, he legally owned a broken house—and had $7.63 left.
The first months were brutal. Rain poured through the roof. Wind cut through boarded windows. He slept in the driest corner and skipped school to make repairs. When a truant officer and school counselor, Mrs. Patterson, visited, she saw determination—not delinquency. She helped him enter a vocational work-study program so he could study mornings and apprentice with tradesmen in the afternoons.
Tommy learned construction by day and rebuilt his house by night. Neighbors took notice. An elderly carpenter, Mr. Jenkins, became his mentor. Over four years, the condemned structure slowly came back to life. By eighteen, Tommy graduated at the top of his class, and city inspectors officially cleared the house. It wasn’t condemned anymore—it was home.
But that wasn’t the end.
Remembering what it felt like to be unwanted, Tommy became one of the youngest licensed foster parents in the state. He opened his small yellow house to teenage boys labeled “unplaceable,” giving them stability, skills, and dignity. The walls filled with photos of graduations, enlistments, and college acceptances.
By his thirties, the house was worth over $200,000. When asked about its value, Tommy said five dollars was still his favorite number—because it bought more than property. It bought safety.
Years later, he stood beside an eighteen-year-old foster son, Caleb, at the same City Hall board, handing him five dollars to buy his own condemned house.
Tommy’s legacy wasn’t drywall or shingles. It was proof that “condemned” is a label—not a destiny.