KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A series of bad days displaced a Kansas City, Kan., family and left it nearly penniless.

"It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare," said Brenda Mahan.

Mahan and her husband lost the home they thought they owned to foreclosure after they became victims of a phony mortgage scheme.

Then, after they rented another home and let their daughter, her husband and their two grandchildren move in, it caught fire, this week, destroying all of their belongings.

They didn't have renter's insurance.

The American Red Cross has put them up in a hotel for a few days, but after that, Mahan said they don't know where they'll go.

Thursday night, they bought clothes at a Wal-Mart.

"I feel like God is punishing me," Mahan said.

The Mahan family had lived at a home on North 55th Terrace for 14 years. After about 12 years of renting it, their landlord sold the home to a Leawood, Kan., real estate agent, David Kostelec.

Kostelec, 53, agreed to let the couple rent to own the home, and for two years, they thought that was what they were doing.

Then, on the day of their son's funeral, they were given notice from a court to vacate the house.

Kostelec has pocketed their rent money and not paid the mortgage, so the lender foreclosed on their home, Mahan said.

Kostelec was sentenced this week to a nearly 13-year prison sentence for his role in a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $12 million in home loans.

Mahan and her husband on both disabled and live on a fixed income of Social Security. They've established a fund to help rebuild their lives. Contributions can be made to the Mahan Family Donation Fund at any Bank of America location.