914 Ms. Hollis’ House
This story has a happy ending, sort of. But it sure didn’t look that way for awhile.
Texana Hollis of Detroit lived in her home on Carbondale Avenue, a street of small, neat houses, for about 50 of her 101 years. In 2002, her son Warren, 64, running her finances, took out a reverse mortgage for about 30-thousand dollars and used the money to fix the roof and make other repairs and didn’t pay the bills or the taxes. He freely admits this and says he thought they’d never evict her.
But they did. Just dragged her stuff to the curb and ordered her out. And out she went, straight to Henry Ford Hospital because she became “disoriented.”. HUD bought the mortgage some months ago. Its public relations guy said “we thought it was in foreclosure for taxes.”
This caused a bit of a stir in Southwest Detroit. To the point where HUD said “oops, our bad” and told Ms. Hollis she could return home and stay there for the rest of her life as soon as she’s released from the hospital.
Now... what’s to happen to her idiot son? We’re talking about a handful of tax bills that don’t amount to a whole lot of money -- money that apparently was in her account. Plus what’s to prevent some computerized and mistaken HUD drone to from doing the same thing somewhere else?
And it’s not a new problem. In Nassau County on New York’s Long Island -- well before the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, they’d sell houses for unpaid taxes to politically connected speculators who also put people out on the street. Many of those never got an “oops, our bad,” and ended up on the curb with their furniture as the party faithful buyers huffed that they were not breaking any laws.
And it had to have been happening in places other than Hempstead and on Carbondale Avenue in Detroit.
Shrapnel:
--Seen the “Missoni” line of clothing and accessories at Target? So many viewers piled on that their website crashed the other day. Staring at the stuff is a great way to provoke seizures and hallucinations, like with those Japanese video games.
--Why do lens coatings at the opticians cost more than the lenses themselves? And why do they wear out in strange patterns a year after you buy them? The good news, though, if you view the Missoni stuff through the weird pattern made by your worn-out lens coatings, the seizures come on faster and the hallucinations have more color..
--In a special election, disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s congressional seat went to a Republican doofus who told the largely Jewish district that America is a “Christian nation” and, oh, by the way, let’s gut Medicare. The district has been in Democratic hands for 88 years. This is not a good sign.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
This story has a happy ending, sort of. But it sure didn’t look that way for awhile.
Texana Hollis of Detroit lived in her home on Carbondale Avenue, a street of small, neat houses, for about 50 of her 101 years. In 2002, her son Warren, 64, running her finances, took out a reverse mortgage for about 30-thousand dollars and used the money to fix the roof and make other repairs and didn’t pay the bills or the taxes. He freely admits this and says he thought they’d never evict her.
But they did. Just dragged her stuff to the curb and ordered her out. And out she went, straight to Henry Ford Hospital because she became “disoriented.”. HUD bought the mortgage some months ago. Its public relations guy said “we thought it was in foreclosure for taxes.”
This caused a bit of a stir in Southwest Detroit. To the point where HUD said “oops, our bad” and told Ms. Hollis she could return home and stay there for the rest of her life as soon as she’s released from the hospital.
Now... what’s to happen to her idiot son? We’re talking about a handful of tax bills that don’t amount to a whole lot of money -- money that apparently was in her account. Plus what’s to prevent some computerized and mistaken HUD drone to from doing the same thing somewhere else?
And it’s not a new problem. In Nassau County on New York’s Long Island -- well before the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, they’d sell houses for unpaid taxes to politically connected speculators who also put people out on the street. Many of those never got an “oops, our bad,” and ended up on the curb with their furniture as the party faithful buyers huffed that they were not breaking any laws.
And it had to have been happening in places other than Hempstead and on Carbondale Avenue in Detroit.
Shrapnel:
--Seen the “Missoni” line of clothing and accessories at Target? So many viewers piled on that their website crashed the other day. Staring at the stuff is a great way to provoke seizures and hallucinations, like with those Japanese video games.
--Why do lens coatings at the opticians cost more than the lenses themselves? And why do they wear out in strange patterns a year after you buy them? The good news, though, if you view the Missoni stuff through the weird pattern made by your worn-out lens coatings, the seizures come on faster and the hallucinations have more color..
--In a special election, disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s congressional seat went to a Republican doofus who told the largely Jewish district that America is a “Christian nation” and, oh, by the way, let’s gut Medicare. The district has been in Democratic hands for 88 years. This is not a good sign.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
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