Posted by
Ed Lilly on Monday, July 28, 2008 9:02:43 PM
A while back, I posted some comments on "Extreme Home Makeover," the ABC television program where a family has their current home completely demolished and replaced with their "dream" home, which I understand to be a mortgage-free deal. My kids usually enjoy the show, and we often have it on after dinner on Sunday nights. My earlier comments raised the question of what happens to these families and their new homes when the television crew and the community have gone on with their lives. My fear is that the families who are often chosen as the recipients of these wondrous gifts are going to find themselves unable to maintain the properties in the long run, and the homes will either fall slowly into disrepair or be sold to someone who can maintain them.
Tonight I saw a quick post at the
Galley Slaves blog which pointed me toward
this story:
LAKE CITY, Ga. -- More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's
"Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace
it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
Three
years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time
has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.
Apparently the family used their home as collateral for a $450,000 loan to start a construction business. The business failed, and now they are facing possible foreclosure on the property. Even more disheartening information from the story:
Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost
about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes' employees and company partners
also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including
scholarships for the couple's three children and a home maintenance
fund.
So even with the free home and a quarter of a million dollars for education costs and home maintenance, this family still is on the verge of losing their home. The story goes on to note that ABC advises the families it selects to work with financial planners to make sure they make sound financial decisions. Whether the family in this case consulted a financial planner is not clear. The mayor of the town where the house was built, who was also one of the volunteers who helped build the house, is quoted in the story as saying the family squandered what they were given. It's hard to see how that is not the case.
It makes for sometimes heart-rending television to learn the backgrounds of the "Extreme Home Makeover" families, and it is wonderful that so many people in communities across the country are willing to put in so much hard work to try to help them. Hopefully the families truly are being helped in the long run and are not simply enjoying a temporary respite from the very difficult struggles that made them the subject of the television show in the first place.