DETROIT, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A 101-year-old Detroit woman evicted from her home this week in a bureaucratic foreclosure bungle expects to return there in a few days.
Texana Hollis' eviction was a mistake, Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, told the Detroit Free Press. He said the agency mistakenly believed the city had foreclosed on her for unpaid property taxes.
In the meantime, Hollis is staying with Pollian Cheeks, 68, the daughter of a longtime friend and mother of Hollis' godson.
"I thank everyone, everyone just thanks from the bottom of my heart," Hollis said Friday. "May God bless each and every one that had a part. It seems like it fulfills what the Bible tells us, to help one another. That's what it seems, like the whole world has come together to help me, a poor woman -- old, 101-year-old person."
The genesis of the problem was a $32,000 reverse mortgage Hollis and one of her two adult sons who live with her took out in 2002. The son failed to take care of the property taxes on the home and HUD took over in 2007. After arrangements were made to pay off the $7,000 in back taxes, she and her sons didn't follow through on repaying HUD, prompting the foreclosure.
Her son Ira, 64, said he was to blame for matters getting out of hand, ignoring warning notices and thinking the situation would never go so far.
On Monday, Hollis' possessions were removed from the house and put in trailers. In the process, her medication was buried among her possessions and she had to be taken to a hospital.
