Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners to Turn to Shelters

[groovedaddy]

CLEVELAND — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom.

The second night, she stayed with a friend, and so it continued for more than a year: Ms. West — mother of three grown children, grandmother to six and great-grandmother to one — passed months on the couches of friends and relatives, and in the front seat of her car.

But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.

“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/business/economy/19foreclosed.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[Democrats_win]

1. Our government's priorities are to insure that no banker goes without a bonus.

These dirty banksters go to work in their ten thousand dollar suits acting as if they actually earned one cent of what they have. In fact, they exist because the government subsidized them after their crooked schemes failed. Then the banksters complain that they are forced to pay taxes. Through the bush tax cuts, they even refused to pay for military that protects business interests. America is a joke.

[Yurovsky]

14. A hundred million just doesn't buy what it used to ...

I heard one bank CEO had to fly COMMERCIAL once. The horror!

This administration needs to hammer these bastards. Not just people who work at banks, becuase your average teller doesn't make a lot. But the pooh-bahs at Citi, Chase, Wachovia, etc make obscene salaries & bonuses, and we get stuck bailing them out when they screw the pooch and put their bank on the edge of insolvency (or over the edge, as was the case in Sept. 2008).

Here's an idea... for everyone who owns more than 1 house, make them open them up for those in need until the current troubles subside. Seriously, you can only live in one place at a time...

[cutlassmama]

15. McCain had so many houses he didn't even know how many he had.

you're right, people like that should forfeit their extra houses for the poor.

[Walk away]

2. Last year I was just days away...

Things are a little better now but I'm still not out of the woods.

I went from a secure, healthy and functioning member of society to someone on the verge of bankruptcy. All it took was one injury, an accident.

So far I have been lucky. It looks like I will recover enough to get my business and life back. I didn't lose the house because of family and friends and my own hard work despite the pain and risk of re-injury. It could have gone the other way so easily.

I had pretty good insurance and a well established service business of my own. I had even figured on the economic downturn and had put off some spending just in case.

But this isn't Canada or Europe. If you fall you had better have a very good personal safety net in place. When the Banks want their money they don't care that human lives hang in the balance. There are no government regulations to protect or help the little people here in the USA.

I hope Sheri gets another chance. Maybe the Times article will help.

[Jkid]

3. Without a doubt.

This is just a good reason why the federal government should build more public housing. Many Americans are unwilling to consider shelter housing because they are socialized to think that anyone who is homeless are bums, but that's not the case. Many people who are becoming homeless are those who had jobs and a house, but circumstances beyond their control made them lose all of that.

But how good is getting back on your feet if even rental housing, if available, costs too much?

[Walk away]

4. Public housing is a nightmare.

The elderly are safer in shelters. Back in the sixties, when government was pouring money into public housing, the result was the crushing poverty of Newark and the Bronx. Drugs and violence and hopelessness. As these neighborhoods have been torn down, decent and affordable housing has taken it's place.

The lesson learned from the Public Housing debacle is that people need to be helped to become a functioning part of society. There needs to be a balance of affordable and assisted housing in every neighborhood.

[Jkid]

5. The reason why it was that way was because it was restricted for the poorest of the poor.

If the federal government allowed working and middle class people to rent public housing at the time, things would have been a lot different.

[groovedaddy]

6. I guess it just goes to show that never every well meant idea or policy actually works.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Many problems can be identified BEFORE policies are implemented and the policies can be adjusted accordingly.

[izquierdista]

8. Vacant commercial buildings would be a start

American cities look like fungal growths -- healthy at the margins where there is new substrate to colonize, but dead in the center where all the nutrients have been depleted. I would like to see local governments be able to use eminent domain to take any problem property that has been vacant for a long time and convert it to something useful for those in need.

[Naturyl]

9. Yes, public housing was a failure. However...

We should never allow that fact to be used to suggest that subsidized housing itself is a bad idea. The problem is not that people's rent was being paid by government. The problem was that the poor were being isolated in what became virtual concentration camps.

[bobbolink]

13. Housing subsidies aren't a "failure" in Europe.

But we can't get this country to do better?

[bobbolink]

12. Your ignorance is hurting the rest of us.

Your facts are wrong, and you are peddling RW talking point.

AND, for those of us who can't "function", what do you propose?

Hurling ourselves off a damned cliff?

Would that make you feel better?

[bobbolink]

7. the government won't do it because nobody is PUSHING it.

We have tried on DU to get action on this, but people won't even be bothered to call or write their Reps.

It's just not sexy.

[jivamuhkti]

10. I think foreclosed properties should be used as temporary housing

if the banks own them, I mean, they got bailed out; it's the least they could do and no new housing would need to be built.

[butterfly77]

11. We need to write,,,

the media,senators,congressmen and women, whitehouse about affordable housing and keep it on the front burner and not let these media assholes like scarborough and fox determine the agenda. The Dems always let the media lead when they should be leading.