Georgia Homeowners Association Blocks Construction Of Charity House For Disabled Veteran (VIDEO)

Even after laying his life on the line for the country, and sustaining injuries because of it, Sean Gittens couldn't get the charity house he was offered.

In the town of Evans, Georgia, the family of Gittens, a disabled veteran, is moving out of a development known as Knob Hill after the Georgia Homeowners Association halted construction on a house meant for him. The house would have been provided by the charitable organization Homes For Troops, which builds homes for veterans who sustained life altering injuries in the line of duty.

AOL Real Estate reports that Sgt. Gittens had been serving in the military since 1988 and had been deployed in Kuwait before being paralyzed by an IED blast in Iraq in 2008.

Reports are conflicting as to why the construction was halted last Friday on the Gittens' handicap-accessible home. At first the Homeowners Association claimed that the 2,785-square-foot home would lower property values in the neighborhood because it was too small, even though its design exceeded the minimum size for houses in the area.

The HOA quickly changed its story. The cease and desist order on construction was simply due to paperwork issues and construction would be allowed to move forward pending the necessary documents, President of the Knob Hill Homeowners Association Rick Trump told local Augusta News 12. Trump seems to have since given up on publicly defending the Homeowners Association after being heavily critcized. “We are finished with the press. Too one sided and unfair," he wrote in an email to local News Channel 6.

For the Gittens, who told the Daily Mail they "don't feel welcome" in Knob Hill, the damage is already done, and they are planning to build their home in a new neighborhood with the full support of Homes For Troops. "This home is about freedom and independence adapted to the Gittenses' needs," President and founder of the organization John Gonsalves told AOL Real Estate. "But it's also about roots. Luckily we can enjoy the [American] dream because of people like Sgt. Gittens."

Comments

[ForVivi]

06:06 PM on 08/05/2011

Just read this article as I am writing a piece as a survivor, called "Life After a HOA",

[Judith L Corey]

08:47 PM on 07/14/2011

Not so fast... The Gittens should be thankful to this HOA for refusing them, very thankful! Because HOAs can be vile cesspools of greed and corruption: entrenched Board members flogging everyone else for any real or imagined 'infraction', fining hundreds of dollars a day without limit for any ridiculous minutia, disregarding truth, parasitic Collection Agencies and HOA attorneys standing by to suck up your equity or home at the first chance. They are essentially unregulated, powerful governments! With their hands in your pockets forever - and as deeply as they want to be.

Look up 'HOA Syndrome' by Gary Solomon, websites devoted to HOA Reform all over, google about hundreds of homeowners marching on the courthouses, the story of the active duty Iraq soldier whose Texas home was sold on the courthouse steps for 1% of its value because his depressed wife neglected to pay a few hundred dollars in dues, the story about the 6 figures in fines for the elderly vet daring to fly a US Flag, the 83 year old widow whose home was stolen because of a few hundred dollars in claimed arrears. Check the books Privatopia by E. Mckenzie and Villa Appalling by S. Glassman.

HOAs can be warzones. Period.

PLEASE give this brave soldier a home in AMERICA, governed by the US Constitution! NOT an endless huge liability in a cesspool HOA ran on the 'business principle'. Where you are NOT told that you give up your constitutional rights. WTH ARE OUR LEGISLATORS?

[TeraWatt60]

10:27 AM on 07/05/2011

Typical Georgia ...it is simple raci.sm , they could have smoked them out by having a white disabled veteran pose as a potential buyer and watch the difference in reception when the real black buyer shows up. Suddenly there would be "issues" from the HOA and "papaerwork" delays that the white guy never encountered.

It is why Georgia votes Teapublican

[structurequity]

09:58 PM on 07/04/2011

Ooh! the smell of racism in the ground!

[hershala]

09:08 PM on 07/04/2011

I guess they thought they had supported the troops enough with the yellow ribbons on their cars, There was no need to actually make the veteran who gave blood for the country feel welcome.
I suspect this man's main crime despite heroic service for the country was that he was black. If the house had lowered values in the neighborhood bacause it was too small that seems like a small amount for any patriotic American to pay. These dweebs probably didn't even . serve.
I hope publicity of this nasty unAmerican behavior reduces damand for homes in this association. That will lower property values. Who would want to live with these type of people.

[canpete]

08:16 PM on 07/04/2011

"we support the troops". until a disabled, black veteran wants to move into the neighbourhood...disgraceful display of intolerance.....

[treemonkey]

04:54 PM on 07/04/2011

Georgia, another state that should have been allowed to secede from the Union back in the 1800's. It pains me that so many years after the Brown versus Board of Education overturn of Plessy, segregation is still alive and well, in the same states that coincidentally will drag down the entire nation with their refusal to admit that we are actually in a post Civil War era. There is nothing redeemable about the continual exclusionary attacks on blacks, especially when doubled down with disabled and a veteran to boot. In this era of the, Tail Wags the Dog politics of the Southern Fundamentalist Tea Party dominated Republican agenda, does anybody else ever wistfully wish that the south had been allowed to secede, and could no longer hold the rest of us hostage to the politics of the inane. I really feel bad for this veteran, who seems to be learning a horrible lesson regarding his own country's gratitude for sacrificing all he had going for him while the didn't do anything rulers of that Georgia HOA block any possibility of him moving into a house built for him.

[hershala]

09:14 PM on 07/04/2011

I have no problem with their secceeding. 1. It would save money because the rest of us support Georgia. They are one of the states that gets a lot more back than they pay in taxes. 2. They are seemingly nasty intolerant people who have no respect for someone who shed blood for the country, all they care about is that they should not be even slightly distressed by having black people in their neighborhood. 3. They have no respect for the US or they wouldn't behave this way to a veteran. LEt them go, heck I would volunteer to dig the moat and fence around them. Anyone who wants out has 6 weeks to get out and after that they can go it alone without my tax dollars to support their nasty unAmerican .

[jkanon]

04:25 PM on 07/04/2011

Let's see ...he's black, he's a cripple; he's a vet...why would anyone want Sean Gittens in te neighborhood?

[awaitingmd]

11:11 PM on 07/03/2011

Okay lets call this what it is...Discrimination. What I dont understand is this, on what basis is the discrimination..that he is black? a veteran? a disabled? a disabled black veteran? a disabled black? When will this all end?

[KidShalleen]

10:59 AM on 07/04/2011

[When will this all end?]
A) When people actually start to think for themselves,
and not listen to the pre-masticated BS from places like FOX.

MAYBE!!!

[mookworthjwilson]

02:58 PM on 07/03/2011

After what the people of Georgia did to Max Cleland, are we really surprised?? Georgians hate veterans.

[hershala]

09:19 PM on 07/04/2011

True, a man who gave three limbs for his country and the low intelligence people in Georgia voted to dump him for a "good Christian" who took pictures of an American hero and morphed them into Bin Ladin pictures. A man who didn't serve but had no problem smearing an American patriot. I don't know if they are stupid, unAmerican or evil but I wish they would go away. If I had my way they would have seen the last of the welfare that state gets from the rest of the country.

[Devin Tucker]

01:13 PM on 07/03/2011

HOA's should not be legal, this isnt the first time I've heard of this.

[lavie]

09:04 AM on 07/03/2011

Back in colonial days communities used shunning as a punishment for people such as this HOA. Maybe the practice used be brought back. The most potent part of this was the shunning also included bisinesses. If a the shunned person came in a store no one would wait on them.

[WorkhelpWorkhelp]

11:52 PM on 07/02/2011

I don't use all caps....but this really PISSSES ME OFF - WTF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wendy Dreeszen Wiese]

11:07 PM on 07/02/2011

Keeping it classy, Knob Hill HOA. Keeping it classy. That neighborhood isn't good enough for the Gittens. They deserve better.

[Jeanette DeBella Bogue]

07:16 PM on 07/02/2011

What a wonderful way to show support for our veterans.