Dolores Pittman, Blind Indiana Woman, May Lose Home Of 55 Years Over Tax Sale Mixup

Blind Woman May Be Evicted From Home Of 55 Years Over Tax Sale Mixup

A blind 67-year-old Indiana woman is poised to be evicted from the home where she has lived for 55 years thanks to a bizarre tax sale mixup concerning the property her house is on.

Dolores Pittman has lived in her home in Cedar Lake, Ind., some 50 miles outside of Chicago, since she was 12 years old in 1958, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Pittman is trapped in the middle of a land sale controversy that goes back many decades. According to ABC Chicago, the former librarian's family originally bought the house from a church that owned the land and paid taxes on the house and rent for the land. Pittman was told in the 1970s that the town of Cedar Lake now owned the land, so she has paid $10 a year in rent to the town since then.

It turned out, however, that the church did still own the land and, due to the church falling massively behind on their tax payments, the land was sold in a county tax sale to a man for $43 three years ago. That man has served Pittman with eviction papers and is charging Pittman $300 a month to stay there temporarily -- an amount she cannot afford.

Pittman, who told the Tribune she receives just more than $1,000 in income from Social Security and pension checks a month, doesn't want to leave her home but may have no other choice. She was never aware of the tax dispute until she learned she was being evicted.

Hope is not entirely lost, however. Paul Bremer, a Center Township trustee, is looking into whether his office can offer housing to Pittman, according to the Northwest Indiana Times.

"It may be the miracle we were looking for," a friend of Pittman's told the Times of Bremer's efforts.

Per WGN, a fund had been set up to help Pittman. If you want to help, checks may be made payable to the Dolores Pittman Benefit Fund and mailed to: Demotte State Bank, PO Box 683, Cedar Lake, IN 46303.

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