Tis the season to doing nice things for others affected by the stock market crash, the housing crisis, and the great recession. A 103-year old woman and her 83-year-old daughter were saved from a foreclosure eviction in December 2011 when police and movers hired to evict them refused to comply with the bank’s court order allowing them to do it.
Yes, Virginia — there is a Santa Claus and he’s helping the elderly avoid foreclosure evictions. Huffington Post reports, “After a bank issued an eviction notice for a home in Northwest Atlanta, sheriff’s deputies and movers went to the residence to remove the people who lived there. But when they found Vinia Hall, 103, and her daughter, Vita Lee, 83, the movers and deputies decided not to follow through with it.”
The site went on to reveal the deeper social issues the elderly woman’s foreclosure case represents to the American public by saying, “According to WSBTV, the women had been engaged in a long legal battle with Deutsche Bank, the financial giant accused of widespread mortgage fraud by the U.S. government earlier this year.”
Hall, who is now a celebrity home owner [thanks to the massive news coverage that the police and moving company hired to evict her actually said no to the bank (and did the right thing)] is set to turn 104 in three weeks.
The police and movers who refused to evict them were more moved by the spirit of compassion, though, rather than the holiday spirit. In the news reports about Vinia Hall that aired on local television stations in Atlanta, hers was a story of good triumphing over evil.
In this particular holiday story, the greedy and corrupt bankers who tried to evict the family were the obvious villains.
In a day and age when more and more senior citizens are being evicted from nursing homes and assisted living facilities because they lost their savings in the stock market crash, Vinia Hall and her elderly daughter are still celebrating home as they know it. Despite financial struggles and the modest nature of the residence, Hall believes her home is a mansion.
“Please don’t come in and disturb me [at my house] no more,” Hall said. “When I’m gone you all can come back and do whatever they want to,” Hall said. She has lived in the residence for over 50 years and has played a vital role as a long-time member of her local community with many close friends in her surrounding neighborhood.
“I saw the sheriffs, who came to put them out, take off and leave. I gave all glory to God,” community activist Michael Langford told the local news station.