She goes the extra mile to help family
“There was a family that had four children at San Jacinto Elementary, including two with cerebral palsy. The parents were leasing a house to purchase. According to the contract, when they finally purchased the home, the slumlord would pay any back taxes. But he never did, and the city was going to foreclose on them.
“So I went directly to him and said, ‘You promised to do this. The city is going to foreclose. That’s just not fair.” And he was like, ‘You can’t come in here and talk to me that way. Who do you think you are?’ I said, ‘Well, sir, I’m just going to have to go to the media with this. Here’s two children with cerebral palsy, in wheelchairs, and they’re about to foreclose on their house. There’s no justice here.’ He said, ‘You do what you have to do.’
“So the next day, I went to city hall with the mom and the foreclosure notice. I asked them to explain what’s going on. They were like, ‘It’s not the family. It’s because this man is not paying. We have no choice but to foreclose.’ I said, ‘Do you know who this family is and what their situation is with their children?’ They did not.
“And as I began explaining, guess who walked in? The slumlord. He slammed down $5,000 to pay the back taxes. And as he was leaving, he said, ‘You’re never to step foot in my place of business again.’ The people at city hall were like, what’s happening? I said, ‘I just tried to convince him that we were working for the betterment of this family. I guess it finally got to him.’
“A few years later, one of the children with cerebral palsy died, and the family invited me to the funeral. That was not an easy thing, but these people mattered. And they cared for me because I had helped them.
“You know, we can’t just go to work 9 to 5 and make things all better. Sometimes we have to go that extra mile. We have to go to city hall. We have to go to the guy and put some fire under him to make a difference.”
— Natalia Guzman
As a Harris County youth service specialist for 17 years, Natalia worked with family involvement coordinators in Goose Creek CISD to address social, economic and academic needs of students.
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