The Augustin family of Keller, Texas has had a rough time. In 2004, Lane, Amber and Peter Augustin’s son was born premature. Two years later in 2006, their home was destroyed by a flood, and with it also went Amber’s photography studio. Lane is now four years old and is facing many health challenges that come with premature birth.

Yet, this family is not one to give up just because life has dealt them with bad cards. They are actively volunteering for March of Dimes, a non-profit organization that advocates for pregnancy and baby health, and have helped raise money for the group.

This weekend, Peter, Amber and Lane are getting a break – on TV no less. They will be featured on ABC’s hit TV series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition this weekend, Sunday, March 1, 8-9 p.m. (ET).

According to Peter, “My dream is to raise national awareness that premature birth is a serious and growing problem…Extreme Makeover: Home Edition not only gave us a new home, but is helping more moms have healthy, full-term babies by highlighting the March for Babies this year.”

In addition, they get one-year of free home insurance from Farmers Insurance, a national sponsor of the foundation.

The March of Dimes Foundation is especially active in advocating premature birth prevention and has also campaigned for the expansion of SCHIP.

I’ve only watched the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition once, but since I spent a couple of years working in the mortgage industry one of the first things that popped into my head was this: “How are these people going to deal with the higher taxes?” Whenever a home improvement is done the home appreciates in value, and this usually ends up with a county tax assessor scurrying to your house and increasing your taxes.

Apparently taxes aren’t the only issue. According to Fox News, one family decided that they should take out an equity loan based on the new value of the home. In case you didn’t know it, an equity loan is considered a subordinate mortgage, and that means that if you don’t pay an equity loan you’re going to lose your house just like if you didn’t pay on your primary mortgage.

They took out the equity loan to pay for a business they wanted to start. The business failed, they defaulted on the loan, and now they’re losing their house. It really is a shame whenever a family loses a home, but this is sad on many levels. These folks are going from a dilapidated home to a really great home to no home. Plus, the people who spent all that time volunteering and donating to make a great house for this family now have to watch the family walk away from it.

This is really a sad situation, and I feel really bad for everyone involved. It’s hard to not critisize the family for getting into this financial predicament to begin with, but then again I suppose it would indeed be tempting to make an attempt at starting a new life to go along with the new home.