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Loretta Pangrac is still looking for a new home after hers was demolished in November by a city concerned that her roof was falling in.

In a February interview, Pangrac was enraged, saying that she felt the city had “stole” her house and that she wanted to be left to deal with it herself. The elderly woman has been living in a local hotel ever since.

Pangrac was able to sell the now vacant lot at 913 Boranda Avenue for almost $400,000 a few months ago, her real estate agent said. Despite this she has been unable to find a satisfactory local replacement for the little yellow house she lived in for much of her life.

“She can’t really buy anything around here,” said Tim Proschold, her agent. “There really isn’t much out there” that she can afford.

Possibilities locally include a low-priced condo or mobile home, but property taxes, homeowner’s fees and mobile home space rents may be a challenge for Pangrac, who lives on a small fixed income.

Because of years of water damage, city staff said that the roof and walls of Pangrac’s house were slowly falling in on her. After an overnight rainstorm caused more of the roof to fall in, she was found bailing rain water out of the house the day she was asked to leave, recalled council member Jac Siegel and building official Dave Basinger. The structure was tagged and declared a public nuisance.

Rather than board up the house, the city felt it was necessary to demolish it and pay for Pangrac’s move into a hotel. It was seen as a favor to Pangrac by some, and a gross violation of her property rights by others.

Pangrac was also upset that the city had placed a $19,360 lien on the property’s sale price in order to pay for the city-ordered demolition. The lien was subtracted from the sale price of the house.

City staff say they looked into having charity groups rebuild the house for Pangrac, but no one wanted to take on the expense of completely rebuilding the damaged home at a cost of $250,000. Pangrac wanted to live in a trailer on the property, but city officials said that city ordinances wouldn’t allow for it.

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1 Comment

  1. Where is Ty Pennington and Co. when she needs them????? Might still be able to make that happen if we get on a letter writing campaign to ABC television.

    Cheers

  2. Newsflash – spend 25k moving your belongings and yourself on a 1st-class ticket to pittsburgh. buy home for 20k, invest remaining in interest-bearing CD – Live off interest and small fixed income comfortably – why live in the most expensive town in the US and then complain? do what the rest of us do when we can’t stay on the porch with the big dogs. Do you know how many people would kill for 300k at her age to live on/ how many have less than 30k? Someone please help this woman get settled in a place she can be secure, and enjoy the money from her demolished home.

  4. Jeeze… when will we all reject the “system” telling us when, where, how we can live… If this dear lady wants to stay in a falling down house, let her.. Oh now, Our City, like the State and Feds , know better how to handle everything.. For G/// Sake, we give millions of free money to non-producing welfare sucking folks, but can’t seek out help for this lady for a new roof ?? I dare say, that for the 19 K “Charge to her”… the City could have put a roof on the house.. Jeeze… where did our freedoms go ? Our City Govt. is but a symbol of where our Govt. Society is going…
    YOU/ME/US are next..

    george

  6. Nice to have a followup story after the heart wrenching one in February.

    +1 on the Ty Pennington idea.

    @George

    Where the heck can you get a rebuild of a collapsing roof for 19k? Once the City touches that structure, its now liable for it which means making it code compliant and structurally sound. The 250k sounds more realistic if you consider water damage to load bearing members, and making everything else up to code.

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