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Program aids military families in a crunch
Operation Life Transformed is giving hope to a Poland family on the edge of bankruptcy.
POLAND — The longtime American dream of owning a home led one young military family to the new American nightmare: bankruptcy and possible foreclosure.
But they’re not giving up on the future. Providing some hope is Operation Life Transformed, a new nonprofit organization that helps military personnel get job skills that can be used at home.
Created by military wives, OLT is aimed at spouses and others who are caregivers for wounded military personnel by helping them to finance online training in medical transcription, and then helping them get jobs.
Teresa Springer of Poland needed the job help.
She and husband, Timothy, are at the edge of bankruptcy for the second time in a decade, because of overwhelming debt caused by medical bills (which caused a previous bankruptcy), loss of employment and diminished income during multiple military deployments.
Plus, they acknowledge personal overspending. They owe $130,000 on their house in Salem, placed on the market last fall for $59,000. The primary lender is in the process of foreclosing.
“We don’t want to shirk, but if our house in Salem is foreclosed on, I don’t know what else we can do but go bankrupt,” said Teresa.
As things look bleak, OLT is providing Teresa with new opportunities. She is one of 10 medical transcription students training under the auspices of OLT. She recently passed her final examination and is interviewing for transcription jobs.
It’s ideal for military families dealing with frequent deployments and changes in duty stations, she said.
“T eresa is our first graduate and employable candidate from OLT and we are very proud of her,” said Colleen Saffron, co-founder of OLT. “To us she embodies much of the struggle of the home front family as it deals with deployment, family and all the issues that come with it while supporting their soldier as he serves.”
Right now, Teresa works for OLT as a student liaison officer, processing students and helping them enroll in schools. In addition, she is a military spouse industry liaison for Proveros, a medical transcription company. It’s her job to advocate and lobby for military spouses and caregivers to be given preference in hiring in medical transcription, medical coding and medical billing jobs, she said.
“We hired Teresa part-time because we got a grant and we are utterly swamped. She needed the work and we needed the help,” Saffron said. “As the student liaison, she makes the initial contact with those who contact us for help, sends them all the needed paperwork, and gets them enrolled in the program and in the medical transcription school they enter.”
The spouse of a soldier plays a large part in the decision as to whether he or she continues to serve, Saffron explained. “An unhappy spouse can often lead to a soldier who does not re-enlist or who resigns his or her commission. So, creating an employment opportunity where the spouse can carve out their own niche is beneficial in more ways than one.”
The Springers say they have learned tough lessons from their experience, and want to share their story so other people, particularly military families, don’t fall into the same trap.
Also, she said, they want other military families to learn about OLT.
A series of events changed the Springers, now living in an apartment in Poland, from pursuing their dreams to wondering what their future will be. They overspent, buying an older home that continually needed repairs — a real money pit, said Timothy.
When they ran short of money, they used credit cards to buy groceries and pay bills. They then got a home equity loan to pay their credit cards. The Springers said they were approved for the $30,000 home equity loan over the telephone, without an appraisal.
They moved to an apartment, on the advice of a military financial counselor, to avoid running up more bills keeping the house going, Timothy said.
A part of their desperate financial situation is, they admit, their own fault. “We should have had more patience and waited to buy a house,” Timothy said.
Also, they did not communicate with each other about what they were spending. “We would get a paycheck on Friday and not pay our bills until the next week. By that time, we had spent money on other things, and there was not enough for the bills,” Timothy said.
Not that long ago, they were getting by.
Teresa, 35, was working for an Alliance company. Timothy, also 35, who grew up in Alliance and graduated in 1990 from North Canton Hoover High School, is a civilian aircraft mechanic for the Air National Guard’s 171st Air Refueling Wing at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport. He is also an Air National Guard technical sergeant (E-6) crew chief with the 171st.
“He loves his job and loves being in the reserve. His is a very pro-service family,” said Teresa.
Teresa, who had herself envisioned a military career in the Marine Corps, had that dream cut short by a boot camp training injury and was discharged in 1990 for medical reasons.
Teresa, an Iowa native, and Timothy met while they were students at Western Iowa Technical Community College in Sioux City, Iowa, where his father was stationed with the Army National Guard. The couple was married Jan. 20, 1993, and in 1997 moved to Westville Lake near Beloit to live with his parents while he went to technical school preparing for duty with the 171st. In 2000, they bought the house in Salem, which they refinanced in 2006.
Timothy’s numerous deployments, usually a month or less each, over the past five years are also part of the reason the Springers got in a financial hole.
Timothy feels it is his duty to volunteer for deployments. “I chose to be military. I can’t in good conscience turn away. It’s hard for me to watch the news about the war and not be part of it,” said Timothy, who expects to be deployed again in May.
His deployments became difficult for the family in a way other than financial. When Teresa worked in Alliance, she was unable to get home until 9 p.m., leaving the children, Briana, Alyssia and Timothy Jr., ages 13, 12 and 7 at the time, home alone for several hours.
It was during the first week of a deployment to Baghdad, Iraq, in September 2006, when an incident occurred that led Teresa to lose her job. While she was at work, a man came onto the front porch and screamed and swore at the kids and demanded to be let into the house. The Springer children called 911, but by the time the police got there, the man was gone.
“We have no idea to this day who he was,” Teresa said.
Teresa, frantic with worry about her children, had a nervous breakdown. “I was working in customer service, and I just started crying. I eventually had to quit,” she said. “Up until then, we were getting by, but just barely. Then we started falling behind on our bills and we couldn’t make the house payments.”
Additionally, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2001. She also suffers from depression and chronic migraine headaches, and has celiac disease (a digestive disease that damages the small intestine) — all making it difficult for her to work outside the home.
“Tim works his butt off, but there is still not enough money to pay the bills,” she said.
The Springers say they have developed new, simpler priorities for the future.
“Our main concerns are Tim serving his country and doing a job he loves; taking care of our family; taking care of my health; and doing foster care,” she said.
“We don’t want to consider buying a home again. We just want to be able to sit down at the computer and pay all of our bills, not decide which ones to pay.”
alcorn@vindy.com