Just Ranting

For most people having their home foreclosed on is a violation of their life, it’s not unlike being broken into or personally assaulted. Unlike selling a house, which is a conscious decision you plan for, often look forward to because it can mean a positive change in your life. Our society doesn’t make the trauma any less poignant. Loss is synonymous with defeat and failure, it implies that who ever loses is somehow at fault because they’re weak or somehow flawed in what they do or think. So here you are, average American, and you decide to buy a home. This isn’t just someplace to live, like an apartment, you invest in it, and it becomes part of you and your family. You decorate it inside and out and it becomes an extension of your collective personalities. This is the place you come to relax, a safe haven from the world, it’s like a trusted friend. When you bought the house you and your significant other (if you have one) sat down went over your finances and determined that you could afford it. After all, you’ve got a good job with a solid company and as you gain experience your value as an employee will increase…won’t it? A couple years down the road your wife’s work relocates but she can still get there even though it means more than twice the travel. Neither one of you gets the expected pay raises you were counting on to offset the rising cost of food, gas, property taxes, the list goes on. Then the company you work for does layoffs, or moves over seas or closes altogether. Still, you’re not worried, after all, you’ve got years of experience a great resume, you’ll have another position in no time. Six months later when your unemployment runs out and you’ve sent out a couple hundred resumes you’re really worried. One thing leads to another and you start getting nasty letters from the bill collectors, utilities and worst of all, the mortgage company. You try to talk to people and you get some extra time. But still no job. Now you’re seriously behind, you stop everything you can live without, get rid of the second car, use up your 401K. Still no job. The folks at the mortgage company tell you unless you do something they’re going to foreclose. You ask what you can do and they tell you that your only option is a work out. You need to come up with a large lump sum and make your regular mortgage payment and an additional amount over and above that for a period of time. But you can’t come up with the lump sum and you weren’t able to make a regular mortgage payment, never mind additional money. Agencies that are supposed to be there to help homeowners keep telling you to sell but with the economy and the housing market being the way it is chances are you won’t make a sale before you lose the house. The housing market has collapsed and thousands of homes are on the market either for sale, bank owned or in foreclosure. The people you talk to want to know what happened. Why didn’t you plan better? Why didn’t you have more money saved? Why don’t you have a job? Can't you just borrow from a friend or relative? They have jobs, they have homes, and they can pay their bills. You feel that somehow, you haven’t done everything you could, you’ve failed and these people must be smarter, stronger, better than you.
Guess what? They aren’t. It just hasn’t happened to them.
I don’t know anyone who asks to have the company they work for close or move off shore or burn to the ground.
No one asks to have a family member get ill and use up all their savings on medical treatment.
They don’t ask for skyrocketing costs, stagnant pays, or lack of opportunity.
It’s very easy when you have a job, to tell someone who’s looking for work what they’re doing wrong.
It’s very easy when you have a home to go to, to tell people who are facing homelessness where they failed and to just move on.
It’s very easy when your life hasn’t been turned upside down, to tell a person whose reality has been shattered, that this is really a great opportunity to get a fresh start.
This is a traumatic event; it’s not unlike being the victim of a fire, flood or some other disaster. Some people lose everything, some escape with bits and pieces of their lives. But it isn’t the same. Fires, floods, tornados…people can’t prevent them…people who loses their houses to foreclosure are made to feel like they could have done something but simply chose not to.
Maybe it’s time we choose to change the way we think.