Slain soldier's kin to lose their home

By Bo Emerson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Patricia Roberts lost her son in the Iraq war. Now she’s going to lose her home.

A judge informed Roberts on Monday that she had seven days to find a new place to live.

“Right now I’m packing,” Roberts said Tuesday afternoon, as she filled boxes at the Lithonia condominium that she shares with her mother, Constance Walcott. Walcott, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, is listed as the owner of the Fairington Park condo, which was foreclosed June 1, Roberts said.

So, in a scene that has been repeated thousands of times in metro Atlanta over the past two years, they will vacate their home Monday. It’s a day that was already marked on their calendar. It happens to be Jamaal Addison Day.

Spc. Addison, Roberts’ son, died in an ambush March 23, 2003, the first Georgian killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Two years ago, DeKalb County renamed the Lithonia post office for Addison, and set aside Aug. 2 as a day to honor the soldier. This Aug. 2, his mother will be looking for a new place to stay.

Addison left behind a 2-year-old boy, who the family calls “Little Jamaal.” Roberts adopted Jamaal Addison II, and for the last four years has lived with him and Walcott at the Lithonia condo.

Walcott, 77, was working as a secretary in 2003 when she bought the condo, but had to retire last year because of health problems, said Roberts.

Roberts helped pay for the condo’s $513 a month mortgage, but her income also dropped when she left her job as a clerk at the DeKalb Sheriff’s Department in May.

She said she receives about $600 a month in Social Security benefits through her adopted son, which is not enough to cover the mortgage and other expenses.

Roberts had suffered from lung cancer, which is in remission, she said.

Sgt. A.J. Williams with the DeKalb Sheriff’s Department said he recently lost his father to lung cancer, and that Roberts was readily available to talk about her own experience and to offer support.

“I really feel for her,” he said.

When they leave their home, Roberts said, Walcott will stay with one of her other children. She said she’s not sure yet where she and Little Jamaal will go.

Wherever it might be, she plans to get him to his classes at Flat Rock Elementary school, where he is a rising fourth-grade student.

“Regardless of where I am, I’m going to take him to school,” she said. “I just want to make sure he has a decent home. I don’t want him to go to school in any kind of trauma.”

Roberts’ son, Jamaal Addison, a graduate of DeKalb County’s Lakeside High School, was 22 years old when his company, the 507th Maintenance, was ambushed near Nasiriyah, 230 miles south of Baghdad.

Pfc. Jessica Lynch was also part of Addison’s unit, and was injured and kidnapped in the same ambush. Her rescue was dramatized in a book and movie.

For several years, Addison’s mother has hosted a March memorial service in her son’s name. She also has worked to create the Jamaal Addison Motivational Foundation, to provide inspiration for young children in DeKalb County.

When Roberts’ son was killed, she became an anti-war protester, making friends with fellow activists such as Doris Benit, a local member of the national organization Grandmothers for Peace.

“The community can’t leave that little boy homeless,” Benit said of Little Jamaal.

Balewa Alimayu, a local coordinator with the National Association of Black Veterans, said his group is trying to help Roberts and Little Jamaal. “For this to happen in America is unnecessary,” he said. “If [Little Jamaal’s] father was still alive and home, he would not have that problem.”

Roberts said she has had no contact with Little Jamaal’s birth mother. She added that much of her son’s death benefit has been paid to his widow, who has also had no contact with the family.

Sun Trust Bank foreclosed on the condominium, she said, after she and her mother fell behind on the mortgage payment and the homeowner association fees.

A Sun Trust spokesman said the bank could not comment on individual cases, but that in general it employs foreclosure only as a last resort.

Steve Westerfeld, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said his group is examining the case, but said if the mortgage loan is not VA-guaranteed, there is “less leverage we might have with the mortgage folks. We’re going to look and see if there’s anything we can do.”