[laurav]

Sounds like Habitat handled this in the best way possible, given the circumstances. The Smiths had to do a lot of the work to make the place better, and are learning about how to keep the house from falling apart in the future. The time for Habitat to have brought in volunteers to teach them this was before the condemning, but better late than never. Though I wasn't aware it was even possible to have 18 biological children -- are some adopted, or cousins? One at every year and a half makes 24 years of child bearing, and even if she started at 16, that's quite a string of uninterrupted fertility.

[thoughtomator]

It's also quite a large number of public charges for a single family - a strong argument for sterilization in extreme circumstances.

[daler]

While I find HFH's work admirable, a friend of mine (wish I'D had this idea) hit the nail on the head by suggesting HFH build new homes for working families, and purchase and donate the old home to a HFH family.

As my friend stated, "I've been working all my life and making mortgage payments on this dump, yet the HFH family across the street gets a brand new home at a bargain price!"

A legitimate gripe, in my opinion.

[Born Conservative]

Here is one of the threads on this story that I posted back in August with a description of the damage as well as noting that they were delinquent on paying bills. http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/964983/posts

[Catspaw]

In my mom's hometown, I played with kids who came from a family of 26, all single births.

[Constitution Day]

My late grandmother had 16 children, 2 of which died at a young age.

She lived to be about 3 weeks shy of turning 90.

[Old Professer]

The 14 at home are aged 3 to 14; this woman has been busy.