Creditor Takes Over Where Floods Left Off Between Fate, Foreclosure And Feds, Orofino Family Is Left Homeless

First, it was floods. Now, it’s foreclosure.

Cindy and Wayne Wilson, who sacrificed their home to help save Orofino, Idaho, during the February deluges, still do not have a place to call their own despite months of assurances that a solution was imminent.

Meanwhile, the mortgage company is circling and the federal paperwork is dragging.

Saturday, the Wilsons and their three sons had to move from the mobile home they were renting into an Orofino motel because their lease had run out. Their possessions are parked in a friend’s garage.

Cindy Wilson is taking an unpaid leave from her teaching job during the next school year to focus on reclaiming the home she and her husband lost. They’ve made an offer on another home but aren’t sure they can get financing.

“I have a lot of hope right now,” Cindy Wilson said. But “just the stress of what’s happening” makes the leave vital.

“I have to get my family settled,” she said.

Orofino High School is doing its share, granting the leave even though Cindy Wilson doesn’t meet all of the criteria.

The Wilsons purchased their home along Orofino Creek about a year ago. Seven months later, in February, the creek doubled in size in the course of a day, taking the creek bank, the Wilsons’ back yard and then part of the ground under their house.

The couple tied the home to a small bulldozer with a steel cable. City officials, however, feared the house would float down Orofino Creek and take out bridges or create a dam that would back up more water.

The city tore down the house with a backhoe and burned the remains. There was no offer of help. The Wilsons were left with a $66,000 mortgage on a gravel bench scoured clean of any trace of a home.

A Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, located a few doors up the creek, also was demolished. The church had flood insurance.

The Wilsons originally had considered flood insurance, but their lender, First Federal Bank in Lewiston, concluded they didn’t need to spend the money after a consulting firm decided the home wasn’t in the flood plain. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided rent money, but couldn’t cover the damage to the house.

First Federal sold the mortgage to Fleet Mortgage Co. in South Carolina, which is pressing for its money.

The Small Business Administration offered a low-interest loan on a new home, but only if the couple covered the mortgage on the old place and the new one. That’s too many payments for Cindy Wilson and her husband, a logger, to cover.

After an enormous amount of publicity about the Wilson’s dilemma, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig wrote letters to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and FEMA, urging them to find a way to help the couple.

As a result, the city of Orofino is applying for $321,250 from FEMA’s hazard mitigation program. That would pay 75 percent of the cost of buying out the Wilsons, the church and four other homeowners. That prospect may have temporarily staved off the mortgage company.

The Idaho Bureau of Disaster Services, which is handling FEMA applications, said it has $17 million in requests from North Idaho flood victims and only $2 million to distribute.

A committee will start considering applications later this month. A decision won’t come until mid-August, predicted Gary W. Davis, of the Bureau of Disaster Services.

Still, buying out and relocating homeowners is a top priority because “instead of trying to minimize damage, it actually removes the possibility for damage,” Davis said.

Nothing can be built on the property if the FEMA hazard mitigation program funds such a buyout. Such funding requires a state match, which Gov. Phil Batt has pledged to make.

The Wilsons, meanwhile, are wary. When Sen. Craig issued a press release last month - declaring, “Federal Assistance May be Coming to Orofino Couple Who Lost House” - everyone, including the Wilsons, assumed they were covered.

The Idaho Education Association even prepared to cancel fund-raising efforts to help the Wilsons. Then came the devastating news that there was nothing to take to the bank.

“I can’t even describe it to you - it was such an emotional letdown,” Cindy Wilson said. “It just killed us.”

Craig’s staff members say they announced the money could be available to help the Wilsons, not that it was a done deal.

“As far as we know, there is funding available,” said Bryan Wilkes, Craig’s press secretary.

The ultimate decision rests with state and federal agencies. But “if there’s anything additional at the federal level Sen. Craig can do, he will,” Wilkes said.

, DataTimes