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Joel Ohman is the CEO of a private equity-backed digital media company. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, author, angel investor, and serial entrepreneur who loves creating new things, whether books or businesses. He has also previously served as the founder and resident CFP® of a national insurance agency, Real Time Health Quotes. He also has an MBA from the University of South Florida. ...

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Reviewed by Joel Ohman
Founder, CFP®

UPDATED: Jan 23, 2012

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) evicted Texana Hollis, a 101-year-old Detroit woman, after her son failed to pay property taxes on her reverse mortgage loan. After eviction, HUD filed to foreclose on the home, but told the elderly reverse loan owner that she could return to occupy the house two days later. But before the woman could move back in, HUD then told her she would be unable to return because of the house’s sanitary condition.

 

Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for HUD, told the Detroit News that the house “was completely unsuitable for a person to live in.”

 

“We can’t allow someone to live in that (atmosphere) now that we are essentially the owners of the property,” said Sullivan. “The home isn’t safe; it’s not sanitary. It’s certainly not suitable for anyone to live in, especially not a 101-year-old mother.”

 

“Here I am, 100 years old, and don’t have a home,” Hollis said, according to The Associated Press.

 

HUD announced they don’t have any plans to fix the house up themselves, but Sullivan revealed they are trying to work with other agencies to make this home livable.

 

“We’re not giving up,” Sullivan said. “We’re talking with anybody and everybody about solutions to this situation, but the condition of the property is a challenge.”

 

Hollis, who used to teach Sunday school at a nearby church, is now rooming with a long-time friend, Pollian Cheeks, 68. Hollis, who used to teach Cheeks in Sunday school at a nearby church, is more than grateful for her friend’s offer.

 

“Polly’s just as nice to me as anybody could be. She goes out of her way to help me,” Hollis told the Associated Press, as she was fighting back tears. “It’s just like living at home, but it’s not my home.”

 

The reverse mortgage loan that initiated this whole ordeal was taken out for $32,000 by Hollis’s son. HUD reclaimed the home loan once the amount paid to the family surpassed the property’s total value. The son’s living arrangements and relationship status between him and his mother are unknown at this time.