Bend veteran, family get special gift: new home

It’s something many of us take us for granted.

“He was about to lose the roof over his head,” said Jim Sehorn, a long-time friend of veteran Shane Gardner.

However, a home is so much more than just a roof or place for shelter.

“It’s stability,” Sehorn said.

On Friday, a family of four found that stability. It was all thanks to Central Oregon Veterans Outreach.

“We interviewed them, and they just kind of stole our heart,” said Jerry Hollis, executive director of COVO.

This new, four-bedroom house is much different than that last place they were living.

“We were living with my mom in Redmond,” Gardner said.

If you can believe it, all four of them — Shane, his girlfriend Caitlin, his two young sons, Aaron and Adam, plus their two 100-pound dogs — all shared one bedroom in Shane’s mother’s house.

They lived there for two years after Shane, a disabled combat veteran, came home from Iraq.

“It was stressful, just because we kept getting denied on places,” Gardner said.

But now, because of COVO’s low-income housing program, the boys have their own bedrooms, the dogs have a back yard and Shane and Caitlin have a place to call their own.

“It’s just a huge, huge, beautiful house,” Gardner said.

For more information about COVO’s programs, visit http://www.covo-us.org