Carly and her husband Fritz live in 1400 sq. ft. ranch home on a cul-de-sac in suburban St. Louis. There’s a mimosa tree in the front yard and a concrete bird bath in the back. In their seventeen years in that house they’ve seen two sons graduate high school, the marriage of both boys to girls from the neighborhood, and three new cars. The latest was an Oldsmobile several years ago before that old American brand fell from the lineup of GM products. Today they drive a seven year old Ford minivan.
Last week Fritz started loading the minivan with boxes of books, pictures, dishes that aren’t needed day-to-day, bed clothes and table lamps. Today he’s wondering what he’s going to do with the furniture. He doesn’t have two hundred dollars to rent a box truck. If he did, there would still be no place to take the furniture. It wouldn’t fit in the ten foot square storage locker he rented for the boxes.
Six months ago Fritz was working for the same commercial heating company that hired him twenty-six years ago, just a week before his oldest son was born. Six months ago things were fine.
This morning Thomas, a family friend and former co-worker, dropped by to see if there was anything he could do to help Fritz get the stuff out of the house. The court order said they had to be out in three days time, and Thomas had some time on his hands. Like Fritz, he hadn’t found another job since the company closed last spring.
While the two men sat talking over a cup of coffee at the dinette table in the kitchen, a 1950s formica and chrome classic inherited from Carly’s mother when she died in ’02, Carly took her coffee to the back porch steps. She was finally coming to terms with reality. She and Fritz were losing their home.
Not only were they losing the home they had occupied for seventeen years, they were losing any place to call home. As far as Carly could tell, they were about to become homeless—on the street with no place to go. It had happened so fast, and Carly had felt so helpless.
Carly and Fritz both grew up in middle class homes. They grew up with middle class dreams, and since their wedding day they’d worked hard at making those dreams come true. They’d never lived beyond their means, never indulged in things they didn’t need, and did all the things they were told would earn them a middle class life. Then, just a few months ago, everything unraveled.
When they’d refinanced their home five years ago they were aware that their interest rate could go up in the future. They knew what was meant by an adjustable rate. “Of course,” the lender told them, “the rate could just as easily go down. Whichever way it goes, it won’t mean much difference in your monthly payment.”
“Besides,” the lender told then, “if the rate goes up too much we’ll be happy to offer you a new loan at a lower fixed rate. Just make your payments on time, and we’ll be there to help for the life of the loan.” The loan officer even shook their hands.
Two years ago the rate began to rise. First to 8%, then 9.5%, and now 11%. The monthly payment is now almost double the original amount.
Now, the lender is nowhere to be found. Its executives split up the spoils of their war against honest Americans, disbanded the company and disappeared like cockroaches into the woodwork. Bigger, fatter cockroaches with more expensive looking suits told Carly and Fritz that they bought their mortgage from the predatory lender. As of last Friday those same cockroaches own the house, as well.
Carly and Fritz made the whopping monthly payment for several months, but once Fritz lost his job they fell behind. The odd jobs Fritz picked up around town while looking for permanent work were enough to pay the light bill and buy groceries, but nothing more.
Fritz talked to their new loan servicer and asked for forbearance until he could get another job. He’d heard about the President’s new initiative to encourage loan modifications, so he asked about that as well. He thought the servicer would be reasonable. He thought wrong.
The servicer had sent Carly and Fritz a letter telling them that it wanted to work with them to help them keep their home. But, when Fritz called, the representative offered only to waive the $15 telephone payment fee if Fritz would make all past due payments immediately. It wasn’t forbearance that Fritz received. It was something else.
With the house in foreclosure their FICO score took a nosedive. A 740 score in February was a 480 score in June. The banks that issued their two credit cards reduced their credit lines to existing balances, and obtaining a mortgage for another home was as likely as their flying to the moon.
Carly and Fritz looked at several apartments, but their lease applications were declined. No one wants to rent to people with low FICO scores.
Carly wondered where they would go. Her family is all gone, and Fritz has only a brother who lives several states away. The brother had a heart attack last year and is in no shape to take them in. Of course, there are the two boys.
Fritz is a proud man. He hasn’t told his sons about the foreclosure. Carly understands. Besides, the boys are struggling too. It wouldn’t be fair to be a burden on them and their wives. Parents are supposed to take care of their kids, not the other way around. That’s how Carly figures.
Carly heard the familiar sound of the mail carrier’s truck coming from the other side of the house. Every day she waited for the mail, and every day she fancifully imagined that deliverance might come in the form of a fat check from some unexpected source. Maybe she’d win a sweepstakes. Maybe her stimulus check would finally arrive.
Carly chuckled at herself as she pushed herself up from the steps and started around the house to get the mail. The crazy part, she thought, was that she really was hoping for that check. Her throat was beginning to hurt a little, in the way it sometimes does when people are trying hard not to cry.
Wall Street closed above 10,000 today.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What is supposed to happen when people do not pay their mortgages? Should taxpayers be asked to bail them out? It’s not my fault that this guy lost his job, so why should I be asked to pay his mortgage? Bad things happen to people but that shouldn’t mean that his misfortune should become mine.
It’s amazing, really, how every time some people hear a story about the misfortune of others their initial response is always about themselves.
“Why should I….”
“It’s unfair to expact me…”
“I want to help, but not if it costs me anything…”
America, the land of me, me, me and mine, mine, mine.
It is not possible to reason with a person who has no conscience or compassion. If you don’t know what is wrong with these foreclosures then nobody can explain it to you.
On occasion I hear someone say, “God is going to turn his back on the US unless we repent.” Of course, repentance seems to be the plank..er…eye of the beholder. One thing I know for sure, Jesus seemed to talk about money and the love of it. Based on that and nothing else, America, and the church has a lot of repenting to do.
I am very disappointed with Barack Obama. I voted for him because I believed that he was going to cause things in this country to change. I know that the president doesn’t have the power to make the banks stop all of these foreclosures, but he does have the power to continue demanding a stop to this like he did when he was running for office. I do not hear him ralking about the foreclosure crisis anymore since the banks all got their bailouts and the struggling homeowners got no help at all. He doesn’t even talk about it anymore. My question is why?
Obama has shown that he is just a politician. Why even ask why he does what he does? I voted for him.
When it comes to other people’s misfortunes it is easy to blow it off since deep down we figure we deserve what we have and they must have some dirty little secret that only God knew and that’s why they lost all they had. It’s when I lose what I have that the smarting begins. If my theology is correct that God gives me what I deserve I guess I better give up my secrets so I won’t get punished like all those bad people whose jobs and health he took already.