MILFORD – Helen Cady knows how it feels to worry about losing your home. Decades ago she was living in a mobile home park when she and other residents would get regular eviction notices because the park owner wanted to put condos on the property.

After her husband died 14 years ago, she was able to buy a small yellow ranch house that Milford High School building trades students built several decades ago.

Now, she is almost 80 and cherishes her home and wants to stay there for the rest of her life.

The obstacle to that modest dream is property taxes: Her bill this year is $4,669, a burden she finds hard to bear.

“My home means so much to me. I want to stay here,” she said, tearing up at the thought of having to sell and move to an apartment.

To make ends meet, she sometimes rents out a bedroom, and this past summer, she mowed the lawn herself to save money, but because of her age she is no longer able to do the repair and maintenance work she used to do.

Ten years of service in the Air Force qualifies her to receive the annual $300 veterans’ property tax credit, but her income from Social Security for herself and from her late husband is a bit too much to let her qualify for Milford’s elderly tax exemption program.

“My husband worked until he was 69,” she said, so income from his Social Security payment is more than is typical.

That’s why Cady is circulating a petition for a warrant article for the 2012 town meeting election asking for an increase in the program’s net income limits.

Under the current elderly exemption program, a single person in any of the three age brackets can have a yearly income of no more than $30,000. Cady’s petition asks it to be raised to $38,600.

“Most people would like to stay in their home as long as possible,” she wrote in a note to Milford voters that she will show to people who sign the petition. “While a reduction in your property taxes does shift some to younger people, it seems with the rise in the cost of basic necessities – food and gas – and with no (Social Security) cost of living increase recently, this raise in exemptions is justified.”

Cady needs 25 signatures and wants 35 in case some are found to be ineligible. Anyone who wants to sign it can call her at 673-1793. Signers must be registered Milford voters.

But even if it gets on the ballot, in the current economic climate, she doesn’t expect voters to pass the petition article.

“I don’t expect it to go anywhere,” she said. “Everyone will vote it down, saying old people get enough breaks. But I have to try.”

People ask Cady why she bought a house when she was 67 years old, she said, but after the insecurity of the early years, which included 10 years of taking care of a severely handicapped son, there is nothing she wants more than to stay put and tend her house and garden for another 10 or 20 years. Her parents were Vermont farmers, and in the spring she wants “to put seeds in the ground and watch them grow.”

She doesn’t begrudge the taxes she pays, although she wishes elderly people didn’t have to pay the entire school tax.

“We’ve got to have the ambulance,” Cady said, referring to an article to build an ambulance facility that will be on the 2012 warrant.

Milford’s elderly exemption program allows those 65-75 years old who meet the income and asset limits to take $67,000 off their property assessment.

Those who are 75-79 can take $100,000 off and those older than 80 can take $133,000.

Along with the $30,000 annual income limit for a single person and a $45,000 annual limit for a couple, there is a $85,000 asset limit, excluding the value of the residence and several other qualifications, including having lived in New Hampshire for at least three years.

Other nearby towns offer exemptions that are higher than Milford’s, but some lower.

In Amherst, for instance, the income maximum for a single person is $36,760 with a property tax exemption of $88,00.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 21, or kcleveland@cabinet.com.