National Ledger – Harper Family Extreme Makeover: Extreme Home Makeover Foreclosure, Video — It seems to me that these makeover homes should be placed into some sort of restrictive trust so the recipients cannot do this. People who get themselves in a mess to begin with may not be able to handle finances very well in the first place. None of the locals who pitched in to build the house are too pleased.
One of the homes from the ABC hit reality television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is now in foreclosure. The home is located in Lake City, Ga. and was built for the Harper family. After getting the gift of the spectacular home the Harper family took out a loan against the house for almost a half million dollars. The home would have cost about $450,000 to build.
But everything was donated, the materials and all of the intensive labor it took to build the home. It was featured on ABC television and then the home was presented to the Harper family. Reports claim that Milton and Patricia Harper of Lake City also received 25 years worth of cash to cover the taxes on the large home. Now they have been kicked out of their house as they have defaulted on the loan.
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]
they failed in life, murder/suicide is their only choice left
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcNSXzdiaP0
just to give you an idea of what these morons lost.
BWAAA-HAHAHAHAhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
Stupid is as stupid does.
VIDEO
It’s unfortunate that these idiots took advantage of this incredible gift then defaulted on the loan. I don’t think anything approaching a majority of people profiled on this show got into financial trouble on their own, but typically a natural or medical disaster is what wipes them out.
I’d hope in the future ABC puts some sort of clause in their contracts in the future that prohibits people from being able to use these homes for collateral for loans.
Maybe I’m just an elitist, but from the language skills of the wife, looks to me like a free mobile home might have been a better fit.
The notion of borrowing against the house doesn’t bother me. The stupidity of the thing is they chose to enter the construction business. The market has been in the tank for a while and they decided to choose that industry to get in to. Pure genius.
5300sq.ft., furnished to the extreme, and a brand new car. They just pissed it away. Guess they’re back to living in their van.
I am sick of news media bashing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition they help over 50+ families and only one miss used their gift.
It is a shame to put down this show without looking at all the other people that received help and are doing better because of it.
Yea, they are sure going to have a bit more trouble getting people to volunteer for them on future episodes.
I’m sure they will be placing their future projects into some kinda trust, at least for 5-10 years or so.
Hope they didn’t loose the new car too. At least they will have someplace to live now.
Don
You can’t help a pinhead, can’t hurt em either. It’s frustrating for a well conditioned American to see such flagrant disregard for material well being. Still, I’m surprised we don’t see this kind of story more often.
Ths reinforces my theory that most poor people are poor for a reason; because they are fucking stupid.
The problem with poor people is that they do not dream of being middle class. They dream of being filthy rich. Too many of them will hijack their future so that they can appear to be rich for a short time.
I have always been upset about the type of homes they build for people. They go from out houses to estravagent upper middle class.
I realize this is partly due to the show.
I agree these houses should at least have a agreement with them that the owner will not sell or create any type of second mortgage that uses the property as colateral.
#12, Bill,
Ths reinforces my theory that most poor people are poor for a reason; because they are fucking stupid.
Most? I guess the best way to answer this would be to go back to #9, Randell’s post,
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition [has] help[ed] over 50+ families and only one miss used their gift.
And how did this family misuse their gift? They tried to start a business. If the business succeeded they would be hailed as “following the American entrepreneurial spirit”. Instead, as most businesses do, it failed.
This is not the first business failure to cost the owner their house. Most also leave a huge debt.
Did they take the loan out against the house to pay for more dreadlocks?
We gots to gets our hair did!
When your given something of that magnitude, do you really know what it’s worth? Can you really have a sense of wow this is expensive. They became very similar to spoiled children in the rich suburbs. Got a lot without busting a sweat, and can only want more.
The Extreme Makeover is one of the most absurd shows on TV. The notion you can change lifestyles and life dynamics of a family just with a “coat of paint” is ludicrous.
Still, ABC got their air time and the people that donated the effort and materials got their brand on TV and even the Harper family lost nothing, since they had nothing to begin with.
I would sell that house immediately, if I was offered one like that, though.
It’s like winning the lottery. It destroys more lives than it improves.
1/50+ failure rate isn’t too bad a record, though.
That being said, this kind of show should be banned from the air. Put on porno, or reruns of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfuction, Saddam’s hanging, “Car 54 Where Are You?”.. anything….just NO MORE OF THESE FUCKING “REALITY SHOWS”!! ARRRRGHHH!
Maybe one of the reasons people are so stupid is because they sit around watching shit like this.
btw, I agree with the Fissile One (#14). There’s no evidence that these folks took out their $500,000 home equity loan “to pay for more dreadlocks. We gots to get our hair did” (nice little blast of racism from you, “personality”). They were trying to start a business, and the business failed. Not everyone can be a savvy predator like Bill Gates.
In any case, the kind of charity that was showered on these people is the worst waste of money. For the time and money donated to this project, you could do so much more good for many people. Giving a single family anything worth this much will simply not reap benefits that are anywhere near worth the cost. Charity should be focused to do the most good with the limited resources available, not the splashiest amount of good for one person.
#20. But, we all gots to get our hair did. 🙁
#21 – Kwadwo
>>Charity should be focused to do the most good
>>with the limited resources available, not the
>>splashiest amount of good for one person.
That doesn’t garner ratings. This is not “charity”, it’s a sleazy reality show designed to get as much advertising money as possible, no matter what the cost in human terms.
Nobody cares about Habitat for Humanity building a $45,000 house for a poor family (who have to put in a certain number of hours in “sweat equity” to get the home).
It’s crap like this show that bring in the bucks.
“Academics who study lottery winners say their stories tend to recall the opening lines of Anna Karenina, that happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
—Canadian Lottery Winners
#9 I am sick of news media bashing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition they help over 50+ families and only one miss used their gift.
with the money they spent on those 50+ families, they could have help thousands
no one who watches that show cares about the thousands of deserving people who got passed over for a shot on the show because they weren’t pathetic enough.
i wonder how many people who defend this sickening show have ever donated money or time to habitat for humanity?
I could only watch about half that video before utter disgust set in., cConstruction huh, I thought it might be crack cocaine.
#23 you cannot be more right on this. the show has nothing to do with real charity and has everything to do with advertising money. they use the “down on their luck” angle to give viewers a good vibe. some suppliers donate to Habitat knowing that only the homeowner and the volunteers will know the source of the supplies. how many donations would Extreme Makeover have if they could not treat it as product placement or mention the source? my guess not much.
the show did give me a real good laugh in one episode when the host said they were bringing in a BIG machine to help with some demolition. i was expecting a 20-30 ton excavator or bulldozer. it was hilarious when i saw him operating a little mini-excavator you could rent at a home and garden centers.
I for one find the show entertaining and fun in the mold of Queen for a Day. As for this being the LONE example of stupidity. Who here knows that for a fact? Or are you all just blowing smoke?
#27, JCD
are you all just blowing smoke?
Better ‘n blowing bubbles in the bath tub.
@25 grog
It’s a tightrope they have to walk. They have to have decent ratings to stay on the air. They have to work a certain format to get ratings. If you can figure out a version of the show that’d get ratings while building 20x as many houses for the same money, then you should pitch it.
I definitely think this show does something better than “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” or “Survivor” or “the Bachelor.”
This story annoys me because some of the people of Extreme Home Makeover are incredibly deserving and do very well after the show, and then this family takes an incredible gift and wastes it by their own greed. They could have had a good life in their fantastic new home, but they wanted everything and they wanted it now. The show really does have to make some kind of clause that says the families HAVE to take financial advice.
I would hate to be one of the people who gave so freely of the time and services only to find out the people were not deserving afterall because they were just plain greedy!
“The deserving poor.”
Hah, hah.