Down-payment program to help local low- and middle- income people buy homes

Ralph Perrey, executive director of Tennessee Housing Development Agency

For disabled Army veteran Gardell Johnson, the idea he might qualify for $15,000 to make a down payment on a house might be a dream come true.

“He needs all the help he can get,” Johnson’s fiancée, who goes by Loria, said Thursday after hearing such a sum might suddenly become available.

She said Johnson has hearing loss and post-traumatic stress disorder, and frets in the busy and noisy apartment complex where he’s been living.

With a home of his own, “he’ll be more settled, keep him calm in a nice area, take some of the stress out of him.”