Foreclosed Ex-Homeowners Turn to Shelters
Foreclosed Ex-Homeowners Turn to Shelters
The New York Times
| 19 Oct 2009 | 05:46 AM ET
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.”
Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates.
Only three years ago, foreclosure was rarely a factor in how people became homeless. But among the homeless people that social service agencies have helped over the last year, an average of 10 percent lost homes to foreclosure, according to “Foreclosure to Homelessness 2009,” a survey produced by the National Coalition for the Homeless and six other advocacy groups.
In the Midwest, foreclosure played a role for 15 percent of newly homeless people, according to the survey, reflecting soaring rates of unemployment — Ohio’s reached 10.8 percent in August — and aggressive lending to people with damaged credit.
At a shelter for women and children run by the West Side Catholic Center in Cleveland, where Ms. West now lives, foreclosure accounted for zero arrivals in 2007, the center’s executive director, Gerald Skoch, said. Last year, two cases emerged. This year, the number has already reached four.
Similar increases have been reported at shelters in California, Michigan and Florida, where a combination of joblessness and the real estate bust have generated unusually severe rates of foreclosure.
Most people who become homeless because of foreclosure had been low-income renters whose landlords stopped making their mortgage payments
how sad, and if you
how sad, and if you understand the Jerome daly case you can see they never actually borrowed her money but stick got the asset.
I have not received all of
I have not received all of the info yet. When I do I will post it here under it's own heading. However, for those with more time and urgent need. You can do your own research. A law suit has been brought by a Mr. Class against the United States Corporation and ALL of it's subsidiaries, (all 50 States governments, all departments of them, IRS, judges, cops, FEMA, and who knows how many others). Bottom line is this, until the Supreme Court has ruled on this case, if you are involved in ANY kind of litigation, you can use this to issue a "sis and desist" order. This will put your case on indefinite hold. And yes, this will work even if your facing murder charges. It literally puts the breaks on ANY and ALL actions being used by corporate america.