Published: April 30, 2009 11:08 pm      

Habitat pulls offer for awarding of Royse City home

Former Royse City ISD teacher Deidre Culp and her three children won’t be moving into the Rockwall Area Habitat for Humanity Home being completed in Royse City.

“We felt like it would be in her best interests and in Habitat’s best interests to not continue with the sale,” said Larry Wells, vice president of the Rockwall chapter. “We regret having to do it,” he said in a recent interview.

The home is being built at 928 Joe Bailey in Royse City, work having begun on Jan. 31, and Culp having received notice of her selection she said then, on Jan. 16.

Wells said that “before a house is finished, the board goes through an extensive review of everything that has come in.”

Culp said in a recent interview, “I did assume they would do all the background before I was selected.”

She learned of the deselection, she said, when her sister drove her to the house site in April for a Saturday morning of “sweat equity” in which the owner provides hands-on labor as part of the house sale agreement.

She was asked to go to the local Holiday Inn, she said, for a meeting with other Habitat board members.

In the meeting, she said Wells referred to inconsistencies. Culp recalled Wells as saying, “this is not the right time for you to take on the responsibility of a house; if something goes wrong you wouldn’t be able to fix it.”

Culp felt ambushed she said, and was disappointed that the following Monday, when she asked that the inconsistencies be put forth in writing, she did not get that.

Wells said the meeting included the family selection head, the house “nurturer”, Rockwall Habitat chapter president Jim Beebe, and himself.

Culp, in the recent interview, spoke on details of the turbulence in her life since she left employment with Royse City ISD in March 2008.

She and the children moved in with her parents, she said, in March of this year, after receiving an eviction notice at the house she rented. She said she was not behind on her rent when she left, though had been periodically throughout the tenure, and paid it and the fees associated with it, she said. The landlords were “wonderful” to her, she said, and she understood they wanted the house back.

At the meeting, the board showed her pictures of the house after she left it. She said had she and her family known she had five extra days to clean it, they would have done so. Being wheelchair bound, and with many visits to doctors for herself, and appointments for the two children, who have health problems, she did not have the resources to clean it fully prior to the move-out date, she said.

Culp has not been working since March 2008, when she resigned from the Royse City ISD for health reasons, those of herself, the stress and back problems, and her children, whose health issues have require frequent visits to providers and much of her time and attention. The children are adopted, and for two, she receives state money, which she planned to use for the monthly Habitat home payments, she said. She is determined to go back to work, she said, but that is on hold until after a surgery for kidney cancer, diagnosed before Christmas, is done.

Since the Habitat home began going up, she has given her van, she said, being unable to make payments on it.

Habitat offered her the chance to relinquish the house sale, and thus be eligible to reapply, she and Wells both said. She has not accepted that route, she said. She is appealing with the national Habitat organization.

Wells said two unanimous votes by the board approved Culp’s deselection. One was “electronic”, and one was in a regular board meeting.

Habitat’s home application on the website details requirements, including the expectation that a buyer provide $1,000 for a premium for homeowner’s insurance, the buyer’s portion of the title insurance, and filing fees. Houses are purchased at cost on a 20 to 30 year mortgage, with an expected estimated monthly payment of $400, which includes taxes and insurance.

The application also states the chapter will “verify employment and other income, verify checking and savings account balances, get a statement from your current and previous landlords, run a credit check, and review your credit references ...” among other things.