Hope for a new home - 2 yrs after Hurricane Ike

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southerngale
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Hope for a new home - 2 yrs after Hurricane Ike

#1 Postby southerngale » Thu Oct 07, 2010 12:51 pm

I thought this was a good story.
China is a few miles west of Beaumont, in Jefferson County.




Hope for a new home - 2 yrs after Hurricane Ike

Polly Lachney showed the concrete slab where her mobile home used to sit. Hurricane Ike destroyed her home off Highway 90 in China. It tore off Lachney's roof and ruined the outside of the house.

Since the storm, Lachney has had to make due in some industrious ways.

"I managed to wash my clothes here and it drains with a water hose out into the backyard," Lachney said.

She hooked up an outdoor water hose to her washing machine. She made her own closet in the garage by attaching two clothes hangers to a pipe.

"I'm very independent," Lachney said. "I don't like asking anybody for anything. I was determined to make it on my own."

She lives in a borrowed travel trailer, but has to cook and do most household chores outside. The 'creative' form of living has made Lachney tired.

"I can't cry anymore, I want to laugh for a change," she said.

Lachney might finally get that chance. She reached out for help by applying for grant money through the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission.

That was a lot of work, too.

"The paperwork, the red tape, I think it's going to pay off," Lachney said. "I think that the Ike program is serious about helping those of us that can go no further."

The commission has approved her application. Contractor will build a small, two-bedroom house on her property. They hope to start by the end of October or beginning of November.

"Without them I don't know what I would have done," Lachney said, with tears in her eyes. "But now, I'm just beginning to get hope again that life doesn't stop right here now like this."

The hope of a new home has brought Lachney out of a depression she thought she might not escape.
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