Select Living Magazine Issue IX | Page 68

Assistance Needed, Assistance Provided! by Jim Heberle, Stanford Mortgage The Butte County community and mortgage financing options from lending entities are responding to the need created by the Camp Fire. Many options are available for folks to rebuild their lives and to recreate a new home for them and their families now and into the future. What has occurred and what has been endured by our local communities is unprecedented in CA history, with its main counterpart being the infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. There is an old saying… I don’t need to read it… I lived it. Well, that is all very true. And yet, reading can help provide additional ‘highways’ to recovering from the most recent calamity… hence this article. Few calamities have matched or exceeded the recent chain of events in Paradise California. While Paradise residents have suffered the most, all members of Butte County have embraced and endured the efforts to support our neighbors and to do all that can be thought of to support said neighbors. From the perspective of the professional Mortgage Lending institutions of Butte County, what can be done to help is to provide - 68 - 2018 - ISSUE VIII a pathway for folks to re-capture the joy of being a home owner in Butte County and maintain the reality of being a resident of our community. It is apparent that many folks will be moving out of Butte County because the pathway of new homeownership or rebuilding seems to be overwhelmingly problematic and somewhat prohibitive. How can we help? Whenever calamity does strike, in whatever form, a prudent course of action is to take a deep breath and then proceed to gather all pertinent information that can help make a rational decision. Yeah, it sounds simple and as if it doesn’t need to be said, but in reality, we can all be reminded of it from time to time. So, there are two major segments in our community and in society at large - homeowners and renters, the scope of the homeless will not be addressed here. Both homeowners and renters are dealing with large impediments to continuing their residence in Butte County. Leaving Butte County is not only leaving ones’ home but also ones’ family, friends, and community. The constrictions in housing in our communities even before the Camp Fire were apparent. So