Maura Reilly
When her husband left her, Maura Reilly became a single mom with three children at home. She worked many different jobs trying to make ends meet and eventually worked her way up to being an onsite manager for Connecticut Real Estate Management. She is involved in managing Sarum Village in Salisbury, and Sharon Ridge in Sharon among other locations.
Maura has a deep, first-hand understanding of how affordable housing can be critical to providing people with a stable and secure home for themselves and their children. Illness, divorce or retirement can suddenly alter a person’s circumstances and threaten their basic survival.
She says, “If it weren’t for this place [an apartment in Kugeman Village in Cornwall] I don’t know what would have happened to me. I would have been homeless.”
All but one of her children are now grown and on their own. An affordable home has enabled her children to graduate from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, go on to college and establish careers and families of their own. Her children have returned to the area since graduating and hope to raise their own families here.
There are many people like Maura who make significant contributions to local businesses, non-profit organizations and individual families but whose wages are not sufficient to afford local housing. They are our friends, neighbors and co-workers and are an integral part of our community and its future.
This article was published in The Lakeville Journal on 10/8/15.