No Happy Ending for This Family's Extreme Makeover

[Amelia]

No Happy Ending for This Family's Extreme Makeover Home Edition

June 29, 2006

Justene Adamec

Blogcritics.org

On Easter Sunday 2005, ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition aired an especially poignant episode. Five children, ages 14-21, from the Higgins family were orphaned. A couple from their church, with three children of their own, took them in. The result was 10 people living in cramped quarters.

The show finds families like these and, in the course of a week, rebuilds their home from scratch. The process is edited into a one-hour episode. In the beginning, we are told the tale of woe in as heart-tugging a fashion as possible. Also factoring prominently in every beginning segment are the horrible living conditions and the heroic nature of the people who are flourishing despite the hardship. Then the family is whisked off to a vacation, the house is razed and rebuilt, and the ending segment is the presentation of the house to the always overwhelmed family.

The ending segment is designed to be as heart-tugging as the first. The rebuilt home is always astonishingly beautiful and completely furnished. In the Easter Sunday special, the rebuilt home had nine bedrooms, including one for each child. The show also paid off the mortgage.

The Higgins' happy ending did not last. The family that took them in asked them to leave the beautiful nine-bedroom home because it did not belong to the Higgins.

The eldest child, Charles Higgins, who is also legal guardian for the minor children, contacted the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, who could not help. Apparently the 24-page single spaced contract did not give the Higgins any right to the home built as a result of their tragedy. It did, however, give ABC the rights to their story and the episode was rebroadcast complete with happy ending after the Higgins children were already evicted.

As is often the case when good contracts go bad, the Higgins children sued both the couple that had evicted them and the various companies involved in making the show. The claims against the companies involved in making the show centered around the promise to provide them a home.

In a published decision yesterday, the California Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the portion of the contract that required arbitration was unenforceable because it was both procedurally and substantively unconscionable. The Higgins will now be able to take their case through to a full-blown jury trial.

[Jeannieb43]

This was not an Adventist family involved here, was it??

I know there was an Adventist family somewhere in California who had their house rebuilt on the Extreme Makeover program, but I don't know their names.

[Barbara]

How sad. IT seems these kids where used by the couple that took them in.

[Dr. Shane]

It would take a lot of whiskey for me to drink something like that off my conscience.

[Morning Glory]

I don't think so, Jeannie. The Adventist family was a single mom with a son and a daughter. The daughter, who was being treated for some deadly illness on the East Coast, was unable to return home to Ca because of all the mold, etc in the home. So Extreme Makeover fixed the problem, and the daughter was able to return home to complete her convalescence.

Morning Glory

[Jeannieb43]

Thanks, M.G.

My memory is terrible sometimes.

<img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Gregory Matthews]

Re: " . . . the beautiful nine-bedroom . . . did not belong to the Higgins."

The Higgins were the children. If they did not own the home, who did?

There must be more to this.

[Halfstep Denise]

Dan Abrams of The Abrams Report on MSNBC did an interview with Charles Higgins, the oldest of the children "evicted".

The interview can be read at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8973501

The interview gives more information than what is in the blogcritic post, including the name of the other family.

I remember watching the episode and feeling good about the two families coming together.

This makeover apparently has been removed from the "Meet The Families" section of the ABC Extreme Makeover: Home Edition website.

ABC Extreme Makeover: Home Edition executives will probably do more "investigating" of any future makeover candidates. I hope they do!

By the way, there have been at least 2, maybe 3 Adventist families who have been recipients of home makeovers by ABC. One of the families attends the same church where I am a member, and it was a very interesting experience to watch!

Halfstep Denise <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

[Gerr]

And did this family receive any help from their church family?

Gerry

[Halfstep Denise]

Are you inquiring about the Adventist family in this area that received the home makeover?

What type of help do you mean? I don't know that much about their situation, but I do know that the church and school had various fundraising functions to raise money to help the family with medical expenses. Then when the building began, church members helped in any way they could.

Halfstep Denise <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

[Gerr]

Thanks, that makes me feel better to know their church family helped.

Gerry