Out of the kindness of their hearts, a Memphis church, the "Deliverance Church of God in Christ", bought a house for $75,000 for a husband and wife
who were displaced Katrina victims from New Orleans with two teenagers.
The couple
begged the church to pick them to give the house to (they lost everything in the hurricane) and told them they wanted to resettle in
Memphis. They were finally picked as the family who would receive the house. The wife even even rode around with church members and picked out the
house she wanted.
Later, after buying the house for the family, the church found out the woman wasn't married, and seven months after recieving the home, sold it for
$88,000 and moved back to New Orleans without ever moving into the house.
2 Unrepentant About Sale of Katrina Home
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who
said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New
Orleans.
"Take it up with God," an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had
flipped the home for $88,000.
Church members said they feel their generosity was abused by scam artists. They are no longer even sure that the couple were left homeless by
Katrina or that they were a couple at all.
And who wouldn't?
"I really don't like this area," said Delores Thompson. "I really didn't, and I didn't know anybody, so that's why I didn't move in
and I sold it."
But she did tell the church she was resettling in Memphis, why would the church have bought a house for her if they knew she wasn't even going to
move into it.
Thompson, reached at a New Orleans phone number by The Associated Press on Tuesday, thanked the church for its generosity but said she
saw nothing wrong in selling the three-bedroom, two-bath house.
Awfully kind of her.
"Do I have any legal problems? What do you mean? The house was given to me," she said. "I have the paperwork and everything."
She refused further comment and hung up.
Feeling a little guilty?
After the church settled on Thompson, real estate agent Phillips helped her pick out the house she wanted, and it was bought in Thompson's name.
She took possession in February and sold it in September. Property transfer records for the resale list her as unmarried; the papers from
the original sale list her as married.
If there isn't anything legally wrong with what this woman did by lying in order to use the generosity of this church to get a free home which she
had no intentions of living in, there sure are some moral problems here.
[edit on 26/11/06 by Keyhole]
