Texas Knights of Columbus Rescue Widow's House from Foreclosure
'Charity Is Our First Order of Business'
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Late last year, real estate attorney and Knight of Columbus Richard Anderson was presented with a unique challenge: save a widow’s house from foreclosure, fight off a mortgage broker that had just received a $25 billion bailout, rally his local council to replace a dilapidated roof – and prove that the legacy of Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney is very much alive in Texas.
“Our foundation is charity and unity,” Anderson said, explaining why he stepped up to the plate for Virginia Fraser, a legally blind widow of a Vietnam veteran. “That’s what we’re all about.”
When Fraser’s husband of 47 years passed away in 2007, she didn’t realize how much they still owed on their house in The Colony, Texas – half an hour from Dallas, where Anderson works. Her husband had handled the couple’s finances, and she was unaware that the house had been refinanced several times. With the loss of his pension benefits, Fraser struggled to support herself, in addition to caring for her 12-year-old, mentally challenged grandchild, whose father is homeless. She was receiving no support from family.
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By the time Anderson’s parish priest told him of Fraser’s situation, the widow had fallen $7,000 behind in monthly payments, and her house was already set to foreclose.
“My first thought was, ‘I think we’re too late,’” Anderson said.
After meeting with Fraser, though, and realizing she had some money to work with from her husband’s social security benefits, Anderson began to form a plan. Fraser owed $160,000 on her house, which Anderson thought, at most, was worth $90,000. In addition, Wells Fargo, which was prepared to foreclose on Fraser’s home in December, had just received a $25 billion bailout from the federal government.
The timing was a big motivator for him, Anderson said.
“This is the perfect homeowner in distress, really through no fault of her own,” he said. “I just started calling the other side, got the foreclosure postponed … and just pounded on them.”
He saved Fraser’s house that month – and again in January, February and March.
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In the meanwhile, he was fighting to break through the mortgage broker’s “check the box mentality – if you don’t fit in the box, we can’t help you,” he said. The bank wouldn’t even talk to Fraser herself, because her husband’s name was on the loan, not her own. It wasn’t until a local news station picked up Fraser’s story that the bank’s tune began to change.
“We have to consider the hardship they’re facing, the resources they have available, the level of other debt, and what the loan’s investor will allow,” a Wells Fargo Home Mortgage spokeswoman told WFAA, a Dallas-area ABC affiliate. “In this instance, all of those stars aligned.”
The bank modified Fraser’s loan, reducing her payments from $1,500 to $423 a month.
Anderson was exhilarated to tell her the good news.
“She started bringing out the family photos and putting them on the wall ... saying, ‘This is my home again,’” he said.
But first, a catch – before the house could be refinanced, it needed property insurance. Fraser’s dilapidated roof was an obvious impediment, and cost estimates for the repair ran as high as $10,000. So Anderson approached his brother Knights at Council 8493 at Holy Cross Catholic Church in The Colony for help.
Anderson knew that providing support for widows and orphans was the impetus for the Knights’ founding over 125 years ago by the Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney.
His experience helping Fraser “just reinforced” his idea of what it is to be a Knight today, he said. “That’s exactly what we should be doing.”
John Nowicki, the council’s grand knight, agreed.
“The council agreed that this was the right thing to do, no exceptions,” said Nowicki, who has been a member of the Order for seven years. “To a man, we feel that this is living up the first law of our Order, and that is charity.”
Volunteer Knights, along with their wives and the parish youth group, came out in force the weekend after Veterans Day, armed with construction and yard tools. The previous month, they had put the proceeds from the council’s annual golf tournament toward roofing materials, in addition to a $1,000 donation from council funds.
All day Saturday, they stripped the roof of its shingles and replaced the decking, inspecting and repairing the rafters and finally adding new shingles.
Two hours after the work was completed, a severe rainstorm hit the town.
“It gave me such a good feeling that Mrs. Fraser’s home was safe due to our actions,” Nowicki said. He added that Fraser’s granddaughter told Anderson that her grandmother was elated to not have to leave buckets and pans around the house that night, in order to catch water seeping through the light fixtures.
Nowicki said that the membership in Council 8493 consists of “just the usual Jack of all trades” – a lawyer, a glass contractor, a truck driver and others. One member runs a construction company. The rest are regular, church-going men willing to roll up their sleeves and help a widow and orphan in need – and their action, duly praised in the local community, has garnered interest from potential recruits.
"I just don't know what to say," a tearful Fraser told WFAA. "They have been wonderful. God's gonna look out for them."
The roof project and new relationship with Fraser – the Knights keep in touch weekly, and Anderson is helping her create a budget – has generated a greater sense of unity and pride in the council, Nowicki said, with members quipping that they are “the few, the proud, the Knights.”
While “we’re a pretty good unit to begin with,” the grand knight said, “I think this strengthened the fact that charity is our first order of business.”
