When my boyfriend, Andre, heard that a new home renovation show was looking for service-oriented men and women impacting their communities, he nominated me for casting. Soon he became a co-conspirator with actress Danielle Brooks (“Orange Is the New Black”), the host of Netflix’s “Instant Dream Home” airing on the streaming platform on August 10. 

Andre and Brooks devised a plan to lure me away from my 1930s three-bedroom, three-bathroom bungalow with the help of a team of rapid-fire renovators who transformed my home from top to bottom in just 12 hours. I am honored to be among eight families featured in the series. The show transformed my house into a home. I believe my father, Toye Holmes, is a co-conspirator on this project as well.

My father missed his opportunity to buy a house when I was a little boy in Madison, Wisconsin. His brand new white 1988 two-door Cutlass Supreme, with the spoiler kit and tinted windows, ate up his home buying power. Loan officers frowned upon his debt-to-income ratio. When the bank only offered him $60,000, he said, “Fuck that and them. I ain’t selling my car.” He thought he had more time. 

By 1990, my father lost his job at Wisconsin Power and Light, where he was a journeyman. The termination sucker punched my family's finances, causing us to walk on lines just as thin as the lines dad once worked to repair.

My father was always a lady's man. Nah, I must call a spade a spade: he was a womanizer. So, once he lost his good job, my mother was like—”What you are not gonna do is be broke and a player!” By 1991, my parents divorced. 

Dad took me and moved in with the side chick that became his main woman. My mother took my two younger sisters and moved 45 minutes away to a sleepy steel town named Beloit.

“If you ever get the chance to buy a house or some property, jump on it,” Dad said after I graduated from the University of Wisconsin. I was just about to leave Madison to start my first full-time reporting gig in Indianapolis.

Who had time to think about buying property when I accepted a $19,000 per year job as an education reporter? His words folded themselves into the corners of my mind. 

Stretched Beyond My Comfort Zone 

I was not just flying by the seat of my pants. I was focused on my career in print and broadcast television. Over the next decade, I chased a dream to become the next Ed Bradley—one of the first Black correspondents for CBS News’ 60 Minutes. 

In 2005, when Dr. Teresa Hairston, founder of Gospel Today Magazine, relocated her publishing business from Nashville to Fayetteville, GA, I accepted a position as her office manager.

“Fulfilling purpose will stretch you beyond your comfort zone,” said Dr. Hairston during one of our weekly staff meetings.

I thought: Is that what’s happening to me? I’m being stretched? Oh, okay.

All I knew was that I was tired and through. I would leave Gospel Today and head north up state highway 85 to work another four hours at FedEx so I could pay all my bills. 

This Ed Bradley thing is not for the faint of heart.

When the recession happened in 2008, my career as a media professional wasn’t paying the bills.

“You better stop playing around and get your money right,” Dad said.

I soon became a firefighter.

Experience Is A Teacher 

“Let me just run some numbers,” said mortgage lender Russell Elam one day at an education and opportunity fair hosted by the fire department I work for. I was assigned a special detail to help vendors like Mr. Elam and others set up their informational tables. I already knew places like Invest Atlanta and the Atlanta Housing Authority offered first-time homebuyers up to $20,000 in down-payment assistance, but I did not think I was ready. It just didn’t seem right to consider buying a house when I was a probationary employee who could be fired at any moment.

When I told my father about the conversation I had with Mr. Elam, he told me it wouldn’t hurt to see if I could get pre-qualified for a mortgage. Within the week, I had a $100,000 prequalification letter in my email for First Community Mortgage. It was eventually bumped up to $115,000, and I bought a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house three months later for $113,500.

Atlanta Housing Authority came through in a clutch. The agency offered me $20,000 in down-payment assistance if I saved $1500 that could go toward an appraisal, home inspection, and cover earnest money. AHA’s generous support knocked my home purchase price to $93,500.

I was back with a zero balance after $1500 was withdrawn from my savings account. 

I had just enough money to get into the house. I figured the mortgage is 30 years, so I can grow into my starter home. But the universe had something else in mind.

One Christmas in 2015, my sisters and I found out that my parents were dating each other. Although both had remarried other spouses in the years since their divorce, they found their way back to the high school romance that produced a marriage and three children. After my father was eligible to receive his military pension in 2017, he and my mother came to live with me. I was grateful he left Wisconsin to help me fix up my starter home in Atlanta. That joy would turn to sorrow two years later.

My father suffered a massive stroke and became an ancestor on July 31, 2019.

Reeling from his absence, one day after his homegoing, he visited me in a dream.

We were in his car talking. I don’t remember the conversation. All I remember is when I awakened, a thought came to me: dad has driven me as far as he could go.  

I can write, fight fires, serve others and, more importantly, own the skin I’m in as a Black, gay man because of his love, care, and concern. So when viewers see my boyfriend Andre and me on their smart TVs and mobile devices, they will witness what Joseph Beam called a revolutionary act. It’s about damn time.