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Home Front: Army Veteran and Single Mom Gets a House for Free in Dallas Area

U.S. Army Spc. Erica Corley has some real estate advice: Always listen to your mom.

She was the one who urged her daughter, a single mother who had served overseas, to apply for a mortgage-free home through the veterans support organization Operation Homefront.

“Mothers are always right,” Corley says, laughing.

“She just kept staying on me about it. Finally, I did,” says Corley, who was living with her parents at the time. But she never expected anything to come of her application to the Homes on the Homefront program.

“I’m probably not going to win a house,” she recalls thinking. But, to her amazement, she learned that she was indeed in the running to receive a home—but had more bureaucratic hoops to jump through. She kept jumping, making sure she was on top of what seemed like an endless flood of paperwork.

“If they gave me three days to send back a piece of paper, I’d send it back that same day,” Corley says. “I didn’t waste any time.”

In early March, the Mesquite, TX, resident learned her persistence had paid off: The organization had awarded her a home. Mortgage-free. As in no monthly payments.

“I was way excited. It felt great,” she says.

“It’s nice having our own place again,” says Corley, who has a son, 13, and a daughter, 11. “My son even said, ‘This is nice, Mom.’”

Operation Homefront is one of several nonprofit organizations that offer housing help to veterans of the U.S. military. Some, such as Homes for Our Troops and Building Homes for Heroes, focus on vets who were disabled during their service. Recipients of homes through Homes on the Homefront (an initiative within Operation Homefront in partnership with financial institutions) cast the net wider, helping out a broad group, including female veterans, military families with both spouses serving, and veterans of any era who have benefited from the nonprofit’s transitional housing.

The donated homes are typically bank-owned. Before handing over the keys, donors get the places in good shape, making sure new flooring and paint are in place and needed repairs are taken care of—so that the homes are move-in ready for their grateful new residents.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. John I. Pray Jr., president and CEO of Operation Homefront, says Corley “was the perfect pick for this home.”

“This house means everything to me,” he quoted Corley as saying to him. “It means really changing her life, her kids’ lives. It’s not a throwaway word. I get goose bumps when I hear that.”

Corley’s feel-good story also made the local news.

Although the house comes without the burden of a monthly mortgage payment, there are other costs and challenges to homeownership. That’s why, for up to three years after they move in, Homes on the Homefront continues to help veterans with home repairs, advice on debt reduction, and community integration.

With this support, the majority of those selected for the program have stayed in their houses, with some even eventually selling the first residence to buy another, building equity all the while, Pray says.

He adds that part of the program’s successful “secret sauce” are the licensed social workers who understand the unique needs of military families and work with them once they’re selected to receive a mortgage-free home. Homeowners are also responsible for paying costs such as HOA fees, property taxes, home insurance, and home warranty.

Corley says the program’s counseling and home visits have helped.

“They’re right there, almost holding my hand,” she says. “I’m still learning, but I have them helping along the way, which is amazing.”

Homes on the Homefront’s assistance extends to helping veterans reacclimate to the everyday life in the civilian world.

“We take a holistic approach,” Pray says. “We have to start with the mission to build strong, stable military families so they can thrive in the community that they helped to protect.”

Corley served for seven years in Kuwait and Japan, where she worked at a military blood donor center.

“We provided blood to the entire Pacific region,” she says. The experience inspired her to pursue a career running a medical lab. Since returning from active duty about a year ago, the 36-year-old has been working toward a bachelor of science degree.

Since 2012, Homes on the Homefront has given out 566 mortgage-free homes to veterans and military families, at a rate of about 100 homes per year. The program receives the homes through corporate partners, including JPMorgan Chase, Meritage Homes, Wade Jurney Homes, Wells Fargo, and the Home Depot Foundation.

Yet Homes on the Homefront faces challenges down the road, in a tightening real estate market with fewer foreclosed homes available. The waiting list stretches to 4,000 military vets hoping to get a home of their own.

For her part, Corley advises other vets who are considering applying for such a homeownership program but are plagued with self-doubt: “If you’re thinking about doing it, do it.”

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