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My family includes myself (Karla) who is disabled due to cancer surgery to remove a 13cm tumor from my left chest wall. This included removal of four left ribs, a portion if my sternum, a lower portion of my left lung and reconstruction of my diaphragm. After that, the surgeon removed 22cm of tissue and muscle out of my chest below my breasts and implanted Goretex mesh to protect my heart and left lung. They then took the skin flaps and glued them together over the mesh. They said that the mesh had to be put in my chest to protect my lungs.and heart since they had removed all the tissue and muscle that normally protect them. Several doctors have told me that I am lucky to be alive. I also have a metal rod in my left arm from my shoulder to my elbow which fixed a broken arm in 8/2000, my husband (David) who has lung disease and degenerative arthritis of the spine, my 20 year old son (Zach) who has problems with his legs due to injuries received in a car accident and Crohn’s Diease and my 18 year old daughter (Kimberly) who has heart problems and bone abnormalities in her feet. We have always had a home and worked and paid our bills. When my husband became disabled in 9/2004, it took two years for Social Security to approve his disability benefits. Unfortunately, when he became disabled and could not work, we lost our health insurance and just my medicines were almost $600.00 a month. We were doing good until 8/2005 when all our saved money was gone. We finally found out that you could go to Cooper Green Hospital and get medical care and prescriptions alot cheaper (I wish we had found out about this option before most of our savings went to medicine). We had a mortgage on our home in Sylvan Springs, AL of $25,000.00. The property and home would probably appraise for approximately $75,000.00. We were working with Chase Home Loan and thought things were O.K. until a gentleman handed my husband a sheet of paper when he was in the front yard that said our home had been sold as foreclosure and we needed to evict the property. I called Chase Home Finance and at first they told me they were still servicing our loan and that they did not know why the guy gave my husband that piece of paper. Then after a few days, Chase would not talk to us about our loan. They said it had been sold to Federal National Mortgage Association. We went to court two times, filled out applications with every mortgage company we could and were always rejected for refinancing our loan because we were low income, disabled, lived in a manufactured home, etc. We were doing everything we could to hold onto our home. We will be married 31 years in April, 2009 and we moved onto that property in 8/1978 and have raised three children there. The land was given to my husband by his father because he was the only boy in the family (he has four sisters). My oldest son, Daniel (age 28) is married and has his own home and family with a little girl almost three years old. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent surgery on 8/29/2007. He went to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America to undergo radiation treatments. My husband went with him because his wife needed to stay at home with their daughter. On October 3, 2007 an envelope with no postage on it bearing a return address of Sherriff Mike Hale was in our mailbox. The paper said that we had to vacate our house within six days and that if we did not, they would come "set us out". We lived in fear and tried to find out what was going on but nobody could tell us anything. With everything else going on, we sort of forgot about it since no one did come "set us out". Then all of a sudden, on November 6, 2007, my daughter and I learned what "set us out" meant. We were home, just my daughter and myself and I heard stomping around on the front porch. I went to the front door and put a brown chair in front of it and all of a sudden someone started shouting that there was somebody at home and they started kicking the front door (the door was a metal insulated door with a regular lock and a deadbolt lock). I was kneeling in the floor with my chest against the chair. The county sheriff started kicking harder and harder and when he could stick his head in the door, I asked him if they could come back later because my daughter and I were by ourselves. He said he just wanted to come in and talk to us. I lost my strength and with one final big kick, he knocked the chair over and I went sliding across the carpet...I was kneeled against the chair crying and the force of the kicking was hitting me in the chest right where the mesh is implanted When I slid across the carpet, my knees and the tops of both my feet were scraped and bleeding. My face hit the corner of the entertainment center containing our television Later, when I had a place to brush my teeth, I saw that my right upper tooth was cracked right at the gum line. He then came in and started harassing my daughter and I told him he had better leave her alone. I grabbed the telephone and dialed 911 because I was hurting in my chest and I heard the dispatcher over the sheriff’s radio state a call for help had been made from our home. The sheriff told the dispatcher that they were there and everything was fine and they did not need to send anyone to our home. I called 911 again and the dispatcher did not even put out a call to send any type medical technician to our home. I called the Red Cross for help because I did not know where my daughter and I were going to be able to stay and I needed assistance getting all our furniture, clothes, etc into storage somewhere so they might be salvageable. The person who answered the phone at the Red Cross said they did not have resources to help us. Three other men rushed into the house (it is believed that these men were inmates of the county jail) and started grabbing things and throwing them in the front yard. They took my rug in my living room and any of my blankets and sheets they could find and laid them down in the front yard. They loaded things in the house in plastic bags but commented that they did not have enough bags so they just came outside and dumped the contents of the bags on my linens, etc. in the front yard. They did not care if something got broke. My belongings may not have looked like much to them but they destroyed items I had received and cherished for 30 years. My daughter and I had to go out in the front yard in our pajamas and that is what we wore all day because we did not know what they did with our clothes. We sat and watched as the two Jefferson County Sheriff officers and the three other men went and got lunch and did not even offer us a drink. We still do not know what we do have and what we do not have. We did not go outside when we did not feel good and one of the county sheriffs commented to my daughter-in-law that they had put an envelope with a statement that they would return the next day behind the “No Trespassing” sign on the locked gate in our front yard and that we had not even read the paper and that it was still where they had put it the day before. I had not noticed the envelope until my daughter-in-law told me what he said. I went and got the envelope and there was just a piece of yellow legal paper saying they would return the next day. We put what items we could in storage. My oldest son Daniel has a daughter almost three years old and his own home. Daniel underwent surgery for testicular cancer during the last week of August, 2007. We wanted him to have the best chance of survival so my husband took him to the Cancer Treatment Center in Zion, Illinois. He was accepted for care there and he and my husband left to stay there while he got his treatments. My husband used three months of his income so they could stay up there. My son, Zach was trying to go to college at The Baptist College of Florida, hoping to become an ordained minister. We wanted to try and get our home back. But around 3:00 P.M. on 11/20/2007 my mother-in-law called stating that it was sad that the house had burned. I did not understand what house she was talking about she until she said that around 3:00 A.M. on 11/20/2007 a loud boom like an explosion was heard and that the house was more blown up than burned and that the fire department just mainly kept the fire from spreading to other homes. I could not believe what she said so I went to see for myself. I felt like my heart was being ripped out as out as I stood there looking at it and seeing all the memories in my mind of my children being born and raised there. We need someone to help us. We would like to regain ownership of that land where we lived and worked on for 30 years and that meant so much to my husband since my father-in-law is now deceased. So, all the males in our family at that time (time of eviction through house blowing up) were out-of-state. When my son (Daniel) and my husband came home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, my husband, myself, my daughter and my 19 year old son lived in a camper pulled next to Daniel's house since they did not have space in their home for all of us to sleep. Zach returned from Florida and did not return to the Baptist College because of problems with his Crohn’s disease. We would appreciate any assistance your organization may be able to give us. About 60 days after the fire, some people said they had already purchased the land for around $30,000 and were moving a large modular home onto the property. I never found out what the man’s name was, but he said he had a hard time purchasing the land and had to go through some channels in Montgomery, Alabama to get the land released to him. There was never a “For Sale” sign on the property and I don’t know how this man knew it was for sale and had obviously spent a lot of time before the six weeks trying to purchase the land. I would think that Federal National Mortgage Corporation would have had an insurance policy on our home based on the total for the house and land. We have received no correspondence about what money may be ours because of the way it was sold. I sent correspondence to the Alabama Insurance Commissioner but have received no reply. I have been trying to find an attorney who will help us file a lawsuit due to unlawful foreclosure and eviction. We also need an attorney to file a lawsuit against the Jefferson County Sherriff’s Department for bodily injury and all the mental injury that has affected our family due to their actions.

We lived in Sylvan Springs, AL for 30 years and my husband had lived there since he was 5 years old. After the eviction, no one asked us if we needed help trying to save our belongings. I witnessed some of the neighbors looking out the windows during the six days it took to pick up all our stuff and try to get it in storage, I don’t know how I survived or even functioned during that time. I spent several nights sleeping in our vehicle in the front yard so people would not try to steal what little was left. To other people, this was probably just a house and land but to us it was much more. It was a home where good things had happened and sad things had happened. It was a piece of land that was full of pine trees until my husband and I were married and cleaned it up, put a home there, worked year after year to get rid of all the tree stumps and planted flowers and always made sure the land was mowed and looked good. It was a piece of land that my husband and his father planted a six inch cedar tree that was over ten feet tall when we were foreclosed. It also contained a water oak tree that was beginning to look good and this tree was given to my husband by one of our neighbors who passed away two years before the foreclosure. I went to see the land a few months after the foreclosure and the first thing I saw was that cedar tree laying in the yard where the new owner cut it down. It was nothing but a tree to them. I got so upset when I saw that tree and besides crying became physically ill and nauseated. I have not went by there any more. One of our neighbors had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side. My husband took him hunting, fishing, shopping, etc. just to get him out of the house and not be sitting by himself all the time. My husband paid for everything when they went hunting and fishing because we knew he did not have much income.

When we found this house to rent the hurt just kept coming. Everyone we had lived next to and tried to help through the years had found other friends and people to help them. Some of them would call us at

first but now no one calls and we are here in our rented house and we need help but have no one to help us.

I took the information and photographs to a local attorney. After a few weeks, I finally got a return phone call from him. He said that foreclosure and eviction cases take a lot of time and money and he did not have the time to handle it and of course, we had no money to pay him.

We do not want a big, new home in a gated community. An older 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home which is private with a couple acres of land would be fine. I actually found an old home that most people would not even think about living in, but the owner wanted to sell over 50 acres and if you could not buy 50 acres then you could not buy the house.

Thank you for your time in reading this and my prayers ask that no one else has to experience what we have.

Sincerely,

Karla J. Hogan

(205) 647-6611

Cell: (850) 272-1697