From sandrarose.com
Not many people live to be 103 years old. But rather than celebrating her 104th birthday in 3 weeks, Vita Lee worries about staying in her home.
Channel 2 Action News reports that movers hired by Deutsche Bank, and sheriff’s deputies arrived at the ranch style home yesterday to evict Ms. Lee and her 83-year-old daughter as community activists and Channel 2?s Ryan Young gathered outside. But after seeing Ms. Lee in her fragile state, the movers and sheriff’s deputies refused to go through with the eviction.
“I saw the sheriffs who came to put them out take off and leave. I gave all glory to God,” community activist Michael Langford said. “This family has been waging a war against Deutch Bank,” said community activist Derrick Boezeman.
The eviction action was too much for Ms. Lee’s daughter. An ambulance rushed her to Grady hospital as news cameras rolled.
When Ms. Lee was asked if she knew she was being evicted, she said, “No. I knew they didn’t know what they was doing. God don’t let you do wrong.” She added: “You know, the Bible says ‘once a man and twice a child’. I’m a child, 104-years-old. Don’t put me outdoors at 104.”
Young explained that the house and case have been in the court system for years. Ms. Lee and her daughter has shared the home on Penelope Street in Northwest Atlanta for 53 years.
Ms. Lee had one last message for the ruthless bankers: “Please don’t come in and disturb me no more,” she said. “When I’m gone y’all can come out here and do anything you want to do.”
I don’t mean to be cold-hearted but I wonder why the media doesn’t do more to investigate these kinds of circumstances. If the woman has lived in the home for 53 years, why is there a mortgage?
This story attempts to do a bit more digging but it brings up even more questions such as: are these women tenants or what? The article says the home is owned by her grandson who took out a second (so there’s also a first mortgage?) in 2002 and defaulted on it. Chase is the mortgage servicer and foreclosed on the 2nd in 2009.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/103103-year-old-woman-1245741.html
I dunno…and was that a new Benz I saw parked on the front lawn in your video and the one embedded in the link I just provided?
I’m no fan of the banks but in nearly every sob story the media digs up it seems like there’s something hinky going on whether it’s a foreclosure or student loan debt if you spend a little time digging further into the facts.
Reading the full story one wonders why the house was put in the grandsons name. Is it to possibly evade medicaid rules? Other than that there is little reason to transfer the house, one must assume that at some point it was in the grandmothers name, and she took some action, (or was sold a bill of goods by the grandson). This almost smells of elder abuse.
It’s interesting that almost all the stories about people being evicted from their homes are about low-income people in tiny little houses the banks probably couldn’t sell for decent percentage of the loan, while out in the burbs people in McMansions just seem to go on and on rent-free. I wonder if the banks are trying to shed their worst properties before they lose even more value but are letting the deadbeats in homes with some potential stay because it’s cheaper than securing and maintaining them until prices hit bottom…
” wonder if the banks are trying to shed their worst properties before they lose even more value but are letting the deadbeats in homes with some potential stay because it’s cheaper than securing and maintaining them until prices hit bottom…”
Of course, “middle class couple lose house, become tennants” doesn’t really make much of a human interest story compared to the low income folk.