Federal Tax Dollars

Rick McCrabb: City program helps Iraq veteran purchase home in Middletown

< =text/ ="http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/cnishared/jsewsworthyAudioC2L.js"> < =text/ ="http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/cnisharedewsworthy/sharedoh/oh/storyews/local/2008/03/22/sharedoh_oh_story_news_local_2008_03_22_mj032308mccrabbvet.js"> Sunday, March 23, 2008

Nine years ago, Blake Freeze — Patrick DeHart's uncle — purchased a three-bedroom house on Elmo Place in Middletown for $120,000.

When DeHart, a medic in the U.S. Army, returned home on leave, he sometimes visited his uncle.

Extras

His uncle later sold the home, then it fell into disrepair and was foreclosed. Meanwhile, DeHart finished his nine years in the Army — including a 13-month tour of duty in Iraq in 2005 — and now he's back in the house that once belonged to his uncle.

Got that?

"It's really a little overwhelming," DeHart said last week while sitting in his sparsely decorated living room. "It's hard to believe everything that has happened."

DeHart, 31, recently became the first graduate of Middletown's home ownership/partnership program when he purchased his uncle's home for $73,000, "a great bargain," he said.

Through a government loan, DeHart replaced the lead-contaminated windows and the siding, door and roof on the one-car, detached garage at a cost of about $11,000.

Before he was eligible for the assistance program, DeHart, a 1996 Middletown High School graduate, attended two three-hour home buyer classes where he received pre- and post-buying counseling.

Once DeHart's Realtor, Bill Hobbs of Coldwell Banker, located an affordable home, it was inspected by Skip Batten, housing programs manager for Middletown. Then contractors bid on the necessary improvements.

"Everybody was real helpful," said DeHart, who is studying to became a nurse and works part-time at the Fort Hamilton Hospital.

And a few months later, a home — once another vacant eyesore in the city — was occupied by a tax-paying Middletown citizen.

There has to be a catch, right? Nothing is this good?

"Where's the negative?" Batten asked. Then he answered: "There is not one."

Hobbs is even more of a cheerleader for the program.

He called it "the greatest thing" he'd seen in the city in the last several years.

"We talked the talk," he said. "Now we're walking the walk.

"It's exciting to see all the cooperation," Hobbs said. "Everybody wins."

People are catching on. In two months, Batten said, the city has rehabbed five houses, including two on Elmo, and five more are scheduled. He can't remember the last time he saw the top of his desk.

"I don't like to twiddle my thumbs," he said. "And believe me, I'm not twiddling my thumbs."

Contact this columnist at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.