East Rockaway Sandy victim fighting to save her home

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An East Rockaway resident who has been displaced from her home since Hurricane Sandy is now fighting to keep it.
Phyllis Boland’s house, on Adam’s Street, has been uninhabitable since Sandy. Over the past six years, she and her family have moved four times, while she has waited for New York Rising, a state agency that received funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development to assist Long Island Sandy victims, to demolish and rebuild her house.
While Boland has waited for New York Rising to rebuild her home, she, like many Sandy victims, received interim mortgage assistance to help her pay her mortgage on her condemned house, while she paid her rent. The Interim Mortgage Assistance program is funded by HUD through an agreement with the state.
Because of delays with New York Rising, the IMA program, originally scheduled for 20 months, was to be extended another 16 months. However, weeks ago, it was announced that the IMA program will no longer be extended. Boland said she has spoken with other Long Island residents who may suffer the same fate.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose my home, after everything,” Boland said. “I’ve done what I was told to do. I pushed and pushed, with every delay. I called, wrote, spoke with I can’t tell you how many people at all the agencies. And, everyone told me something different. But I simply cannot pay my rent and mortgage simultaneously. It’s impossible for me, and I don't know what I am going to do."

Boland previously had to sign a mortgage modification with Wells Fargo, and was told that with one late payment on her mortgage, her home would be seized immediately.
Boland said she is unable to work because she was injured at a past job. Her daughter, Ashley, will soon graduate college and her son, Andrew, suffers from a rare neurological disorder called Landau-Kleffner syndrome. The disorder includes the gradual or sudden loss of the ability to understand and use the spoken language, and Andrew has suffered frequent and severe seizures throughout his life.
“Andrew has been hospitalized more than 50 times since Sandy, in all of our moves,” Boland said. “I don’t know what will happen with the next move.”
After the storm, Boland said, Wells Fargo petitioned to put her house into foreclosure because it was unlivable. The court judge reassured her that it could eventually move out of foreclosure status.
The family stayed with a relative for three weeks after Sandy. They spent the next 11 months in a one-room hotel, and then rented a house on Lawrence Street in East Rockaway. They also lived in Oceanside before returning to East Rockaway and renting their current home on Dart Street, blocks from where their Adams Street home stands vacant.
Boland said that because of her injury while on the job, she fell behind on her mortgage before Sandy struck. Sandy exacerbated the situation. “Every week and every month, my mortgage went further and further and further into arrears,” she said, “because I could not pay both my rent and my mortgage at the same time.”
Boland was told by New York Rising to make her mortgage with Wells Fargo current to qualify for IMA. Boland refinanced her home through the Home Affordable Modification Program, which is designed to help financially struggling homeowners. Property taxes, insurance, penalties, and fees caused HAMP to increase the mortgage on Boland’s house an additional $167,000 and pushed out her mortgage to 32 years.
Boland was then told she could not apply for IMA without receiving a “demonstrable hardship” letter approval. She said she immediately applied for the letter, but faced more delays. “The letter was pending for 16 months, before I finally received the IMA,” she said. Boland noted that she was told about the IMA program in late 2015, applied for it in early 2016, and did not receive IMA approval until August 2017. Due to the IMA department's way of calculating, Boland only received a credit for 14 months of mortgage reimbursement.
According to Boland, GOSR representatives also offered to rebuild her home through its Recon 100 program in July 2016, and told her that she would receive her mortgage reimbursement the entire time her house was being built. She said GOSR would not let her into the rebuild program, however, until she received the IMA, which she did in August 2017.
Boland also submitted permits to rebuild to East Rockaway village officials, which she said were not approved until Feb. 7 of this year. “It took six months to get the plans drawn and the permit application to be presented to the village,” she said.
When she was accepted into the IMA program, Boland was told that she would receive coverage for 36 months or until her home was complete. However, in February, the IMA department of New York Rising told her that the IMA program was no longer extedned from 20 months to 36 as of Dec. 31. Applications for the program will end on june 1 and it will close completely in December.
“At every turn there has been a bait and switch or a roadblock,” she said. I have done, and will continue to do, everything I can to save my home.”
State Sen. Todd Kaminsky and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice wrote a letter to HUD in December 2017. “We are writing to request that you reinstate the extension of the Interim Mortgage Assistance program to assist those still rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy,” the letter read. “… This sudden change will cause undue financial hardship for our constituents who based their construction timeline on the IMA they were originally granted.”
A HUD spokesman, who requested not to give his name, said that the state has the ability to request extending the 36-month period further, but the request has not been made. The state reports to the department quarterly about funding, he said, adding that about $10.4 million was available for the program as of December 2017. The next report will come out on March 31. He said the program was not completely suspended, and went on a case-by-case basis.
In an effort to save her home, Boland started a petition to bring back the IMA program. As of press time, it has garnered 869 signatures. It can be viewed by visiting http://bit.ly/2pnEmcD.