I tend to hang onto things. Not physical things. We run pretty lean in our house. I mean injustices. On me or anybody, which makes it especially hard for me to even turn on the news. Drives me nuts and my blood pressure through the roof. But I have to say something about this injustice that has been chewing its way through my patience for the last five years. Here it is.
In 2013 my wife and I started to looking for a home to buy in Irvine, California. I wanted to use my VA loan and had determined with a single phone call that I was eligible for over $600,000 because of the cost of living in Orange County. Excited, we started visiting all of the new home developments in Irvine. And I mean all of them.
Not a single one accepted VA loans and used the excuse that our benefits did not provide loans that were large enough to buy their homes priced in the $500,000’s and up. At the first few I explained to anyone who would listen that I was eligible, but they ignored me with a silent dismissal and walked away to find a more appropriate customer. The real irony was that the majority of the developments were (and still are) being built on the old NAS El Toro site, where servicemen served and some died protecting our country.
But we certainly cannot live there.
I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so I thought I would communicate with the Irvine Mayor, Steven Choi’s office. After writing a nice letter explaining my research, results and how to verify the VA loan thresholds, I waited for a response. It took two months and the response was almost word for word what I was told at each and every development. Now I was getting pissed. To prove I was right it literally took two minutes (I timed it) to find the website on my phone.
This was an example of lazy leadership at its worst. Our soldiers and sailors study and train for months before they are deployed. They spend days awake standing guard, achieving mission objectives, repairing underfunded equipment, all the while knowing the devil and death is in the details. We have seen too many innocent tragedies lately because our boys and girls are overworked and over deployed, but Steven Choi couldn’t take two minutes to consider an entire population group in his city.
The real tragedy is he spent a hundredfold more time communicating with and working to approve the developer’s plans, than he did considering the vets that made his entire life possible. Veterans are successful leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, Police Chiefs and Fire Captains who can more than afford Irvine’s homes. I could, but instead we found a home in Orange where we could raise our horses, dogs, grandchildren and hopefully write the next great story. Your loss Irvine.
Check out number eleven on the music player for a little admonishment from my generation for Irvine’s fortunate sons and daughters.
words & worlds 