Alisha Noel thought she’d done everything right.

A single mom in her mid-20s who worked three jobs, she managed to save up over $12,000. And she wanted to go home.

Home, for her, was a dilapidated two-story abode in St. Paul’s old Rondo neighborhood — the same house she’d grown up in as a little girl.

“Why you wanna move back there?” her mother asked her. “It’s just an old house. And it’s in terrible shape.”

“It means something to me, mom,” Alisha said. “I’ve always loved that house.”

A woman who reflexively references the Bible, Noel wanted to sponsor some foster kids — and what better place?

And so, armed with a pre-approved bank loan and decent savings, Noel went to the county forfeiture auction where the house was to be offered, ready to bid hard.

But placing that winning bid was the worst thing that happened in Noel’s life. In a year, she’d lose everything — over $25,000, the house, just about everything except her somewhat shaken faith.

Local government officials offer a lot of lip service about home ownership, and how they’d like young African-Americans to starting doing it, for the betterment of the community. It’s a goal touted at plenty of committee meetings.

But Noel’s case exemplifies nothing but pitfalls — snags she hadn’t foreseen, that caused her to lose everything chasing that simple dream.

PUTTING IN A BID

Noel had tracked the home at 889 Fuller Avenue for months — she knew its previous owner had died and hadn’t paid taxes on it in awhile.

And from the outside, it was in rough shape, sure.

But she was pre-approved for a $175,000 loan from her local credit union, Wings Financial, based on her good credit and savings. She’d worked full-time during the day and two jobs at night, with alternating shifts, for several years — in addition to caring for her now 6-year-old son. When October rolled around, she felt ready. Related Articles St. Paul district reports enrollment drop as pandemic moves school online

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Bids on the home started at $56,000 — that’s the kind of shape the 1,500-square-foot home, which had last sold for $150,000 in 2003, was in. And one of the other bidders really wanted it. After some tense back and forth, Noel put in a final bid of $78,000 — she wouldn’t go any higher, she told herself.

The other bidder dropped out, allowing Noel to start signing papers.

There were caveats: The dilapidated home would be hers on a contract-for-deed. She’d have six months to get it up to code. Either that, or she’d lose her $10,186 deposit and the sum of her $620 monthly payments.

But there were details that weren’t in the written contract, details she didn’t know.

She knew the house needed substantial work and took several bids. The lowest — placed by an electrician her mother knew — was an unsurprising $66,800. Still well within the pre-approved loan amount.

But that wasn’t how it worked out.

“The condition of the home, with no equity in it, the bank wouldn’t give a loan for repairs,” Noel said. “Condemned homes, the ones that are unlivable, I guess they don’t mortgage those.”

Which led Noel to a few nonprofits that specialize in exactly the type of assistance that Noel needed.

The one that got the furthest, NeighborWorks Home Partners in St. Paul, even gets money from the city for just that reason: About $200,000 in community development block grants, every year, for infrastructure. The state also kicks in: home improvement funds for low or moderate income taxpayers, which NeighborWorks uses to help leverage more loan or grant money from private sources.

But there was a problem. The county said no.

As the primary lease holder under the contract for deed, they wouldn’t let Noel take out what was essentially a second mortgage to do the work that they required of her.

To do so would give organizations like NeighborWorks ownership of the property, with no guarantee people like Noel would get it back, county officials said. Even NeighborWorks’ stamp of government approval wasn’t enough. No second mortgages — no liens — period.

County officials note they post a seven-page document online and in newspapers, which includes a paragraph in the middle saying such liens aren’t permitted. They added that they read the document, in full, at the beginning of each forfeiture auction.

Alisha said she arrived at her auction after the time posted for people to start registering, but before they started bidding, and staffers were already talking — if there was anything about liens, she missed it. She didn’t recall seeing a stipulation in any written literature she received — something county officials dispute. The rule is not stated in her contract with the county.

“Oh no. Oh no,” NeighborWorks executive director Jason Peterson said when a reporter told him what eventually happened to Noel.

Things got uglier. Noel tried other nonprofits and got the same response.

“Nobody is going to be able to help her, unless they find somebody able to give a personal unsecured loan,” Peterson said. “Unless somebody’s got a war chest of reserved funds, there’s really no way for them to fix up the home.”

Other people — house “flippers” from her neighborhood, who fix up homes themselves for resell, told Noel the same thing. The only people who typically bid at those county auctions are flippers or people with a whole lot of money to spare.

There was likely no other way for anyone to have the funds to do it.

The county extended her six-month deadline to a year. Noel admits she missed one payment by a couple days, triggering some penalties.

In the meantime, the electrician Noel’s mother knew, Bernie Battle, took $3,000 to start work — and also said he’d set up Noel with some “investors.”

But some of them balked at the home condition, and others wanted more money to start.

One of those men eventually offered to take the contract off Noel’s hands — at an $8,000 loss.

“I tried to help her as much as I could. She just got herself over her head; that’s what I told her,” said the home’s new owner, Craig Cooper.

Of the county auctions, Cooper remarked, “I don’t bid on those. I used to a long time ago, but people that don’t know what they’re doing, they run the price up way too much.”

The $3,000 Noel gave Battle in December “for start-up cost and overhead” was never returned. Noel noted that no work was done on the house when she owned it — though both Battle and Cooper acknowledge Battle did electrical work on the home once ownership was transferred to Cooper.

Battle said he spent about 30 hours organizing subcontractors for the work — bids Noel said she never saw — and initially said, “Who’s gonna pay me for that?”

But he later said, “I’ll do what I can do. … I’m gonna give it (the money) to her.”

AVENUES TO GROWTH BLOCKED

Her savings gone, Noel says of the experience, “I would’ve much rather been mugged walking down the street.

“How are we supposed to develop, grow, become homeowners when the avenues you take are blocked?” she adds. “I reached out, I tried everything I possibly could. I tapped into every source I had.”

She admits should could have done more research and been less trusting. She said she “read up on tax forfeiture auctions — I did a ton of research online — and I didn’t see anything that said you’re not going to be able to get help funding repairs, or third-party contracts.”

But the county reiterated its information is published and posted online.

Still, some housing advocates wonder whether the county could do a better job educating people — emphasizing the fine print that could essentially wipe out someone’s savings. And whether there should be a better process to allow access to programs that lend money to help people like Noel.

“How forthright and supportive is the county in supporting people to be proactive?” said Metric Giles, executive director of the Community Stabilization Project, a St. Paul nonprofit that helps low-income residents with housing issues. “This policy, it’s a deterrent. And who is it impacting?”

Ramsey County spokesman John Siqveland said the county was reviewing its tax forfeited land program by creating an advisory panel that would, among other things, “take up criteria for owner-occupancy, such as how buyers are well-informed and prepared for sustainable home ownership.”

The county is also exploring whether to increase the number of homes that they fix up themselves before selling them, Sigveland said.

In the end, Noel said she’s made peace with losing the house and the money. They’re just things, she says, as she looks at her young boy.

“It’s not like we’re not trying to better our communities, but it’s hard when you have all this stuff against you. … I think something like this just showed me how important it is for people to know and be educated about this stuff.”

Still, Noel said, “This didn’t deter me from becoming a homeowner. I just have to start all the way over.”