A local elders advocate is continuing his battle to keep a Bernardston senior in his home.
Al Norman said he and Northampton lawyer Peter Lane have filed a civil lawsuit to try to stop the eviction of 74-year-old Robert McCollum, who has lived in his log cabin on Shaw Road since the late 1990s.
“We want to show that Bob was a victim of a predatory loan,” Norman, who was founder and executive director of the former Franklin County Home Care Corp., said. “He got a loan in 2003 and ran into problems shortly after. The loan started with Countrywide Loans, which was later bought by Bank of America.”
Norman said the David and Goliath story starts there, with McCollum receiving a $153,000 loan he couldn’t afford.
“He needed to make some home improvements and other things, but he was an independent contractor and didn’t have the steady, stable income to pay back that type of loan — the bank should have seen that,” Norman said. “He probably didn’t read the fine print.”
Norman said the loan was a 30-year variable.
“He was 59 years old at the time of the loan,” he said. “That means Bob would have been 89 before the loan was paid. He didn’t have the assets or income for that.”
Norman said McCollum received notice from the bank last spring, saying his home was being foreclosed on.
“This is not just a story about Bob, but a cautionary tale to seniors,” he said. He said seniors need to stay away from long-term loans.
Norman said the bank held a public auction in March 2018, but there were no bidders, so the bank bought the house for $126,400.
“We were able to hold the foreclosure off for a year, but here we are again,” Norman said. “He received notice recently that he had 72 hours to get out. Then, he got sick and is in rehab right now.”
Norman said originally, the bank offered McCollum $2,000 and 30 days to get out, but there isn’t enough affordable, available housing in Franklin County.
“He wouldn’t have found anything in that time, and $2,000 wouldn’t have helped much,” Norman said.
He said he is disheartened that one of the largest banks in the world is going after a man who is destitute.
“He lives completely on his Social Security check,” Norman said. “The bank wants to put this guy out on the street.”
Norman said he hopes the next stop for McCollum is Housing Court. He said Lane will represent him.
“He never should have been given that loan,” Norman said. “He was eager to get it at the time, and the bank was eager to give it. I hope others learn from this – seniors don’t always realize what they’re getting into with these deals and they end up in deep debt.”
Norman said McCollum told him from where he is in rehab the other day that he “feels pretty beat up.”
He said McCollum already has three strikes against him: he is elderly, disabled and low-income.
“I’ve got him on housing lists in Bernardston, Gill and Northfield, where he grew up, but there are three-year waiting lists, which is another problem,” Norman said.
He said it is sad that McCollum, who has struggled for several years with multiple health problems, is lying in a rehab bed right now, wondering if his house is gone or will be soon.
“We’re going to do what we can for him,” Norman said.
Last year at the foreclosure auction, McCollum told The Recorder,“I feel embarrassed and ashamed. This is the worst tragedy of my life,” as he lay in a bed in Baystate Franklin Medical Center after falling ill. “I hope some good will come out of it, and maybe it’ll help somebody else and expose the banks for what they’re really doing.”
Norman said that’s exactly what he and Lane are trying to do.
Lane could not be reached for comment.