Navy: Suicidal sailor’s family no longer faces immediate eviction

The Navy said today it is continuing to work with a Pearl Harbor sailor’s family and a military housing contractor to resolve an eviction notice received by the family after the sailor reportedly threatened to kill himself at home and a standoff with police ensued.

“Bottom line — the family is not facing immediate eviction,” said Navy Region Hawaii in a statement e-mailed today to the Star-Advertiser. “We’ve been working with the family and providing assistance to them since the incident, and we’re working closely with Forest City to help everyone involved.”

The Navy did not provide any details as to how long the family would be allowed to remain in their Radford Terrace military home.

“They (the Navy) have been in contact with me, but they have not told me that they had changed the minds of Forest City at all. As far as I know, I still have 45 days to be out,” said Melissa Carter, the sailor’s wife.

Three days after Chad Carter, a sonar technician on the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon, threatened to cut his wrists at the home on Aug. 14, according to his wife, housing contractor Forest City Residential Management sent the family a letter saying they had 45 days to move out.

Carter, a 36-year-old who has been in the Navy for 18 years, lives in the four-bedroom townhouse with his wife and their three children, ages 10, 5 and 10 months. The 5-year-old has autism, Melissa Carter said.

Chad Carter now is in a civilian post-traumatic stress center in California and will be there for at least four weeks receiving care, she said.

Melissa Carter said with the uncertainty of finding replacement housing, she enrolled her 10- and 5-year-old boys in school in Florida, where she has family, “to have some stability” while trying to figure out where to live in Hawaii.

She wants to stay in the Radford Terrace home the family has been in since June of 2011, but not if it only means a 30- or 60-day extension.

“I’m here with three young children trying to move a whole household’s worth of goods, basically by myself, (and) I don’t even know where yet,” she said.

She said she believes the Navy is trying to help her family, but, “I feel like the Navy doesn’t have control over Forest City, and that’s the part that just boggles my mind, because I really thought that the military still was the final say about these things.”

“We understand the difficulties this family is facing,” Navy Region Hawaii said. “We are all working together to keep the family informed every step of the way, and we will ensure they are offered all available options.”