Foreclosure Crisis Hits Warp Speed: 6 Million Families Face Losing Their Homes In Next 3 Years

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/134003/foreclosure_crisis_hits_warp_speed%3A_6_million_families_face_losing_their_homes_in_the_next_three_years

Foreclosure Crisis Hits Warp Speed: 6 Million Families Face Losing Their Homes in the Next Three Years

By Nan Mooney, AlterNet. Posted March 30, 2009.

A second wave of very distressed families is going to be desperately in need of a social safety net that doesn't exist.

- snip -

An estimated 6 million families could be facing this question in the next three years, with nearly 1 in 10 mortgage holders either delinquent or in foreclosure. And although we've heard a lot about trying to help people stay in their homes -- like President Obama's $275 billion foreclosure-prevention package -- it's been far more difficult to follow what happens to these families once they've been forced out.

"We haven't done a good job of tracking those people who were not able to stay in their homes," admits Douglas Robinson of NeighborWorks, an umbrella organization for more than 230 local nonprofits focused on community development. "Over the past four years, we've been heavily focused on foreclosure prevention -- keeping people in their homes. We're just starting to look at the other side of things now."

According to Robinson, those victims of foreclosure who do wind up being pushed out of their homes can be roughly divided into two waves.

The first wave consists of those who lost their homes because they were unable to keep up with payments on poor mortgages, often with cripplingly high interest rates. There's no hard research as yet, but anecdotal evidence indicates that, although these people didn't have the financial resources to keep up with their mortgage payments, most were able to rent apartments or even homes in their same communities.

But for the second wave, the transition hasn't been nearly so seamless. These are the people who are unable to make mortgage payments because they've lost their jobs. They no longer have the incomes to afford rentals.

This second wave is creating a strong demand for social services, including homeless shelters -- a demand that far exceeds supply. Again, as yet there is no hard data, but anecdotal evidence indicates a far higher percentage of these people are winding up in hotel rooms, with friends and relatives, in shelters, or even sleeping in cars or on the street.

The recession has created a new and growing segment of the homeless population --those who until recently were gainfully employed, often living paycheck to paycheck, and now find themselves out of a home through no fault of their own.

MORE

[Mari333]

1. and if we cut the military budget by 2/3 we could easily afford

to shelter people and help them get on their feet. but no, we must wage unending wars.

[silverojo]

4. So very true - n/t

[NutmegYankee]

5. Granted, you would put millions more out of work...

[Mari333]

6. add to that stop the outsourcing of jobs

i know, i live in a dream world.

[NutmegYankee]

7. One of the reasons Defense has so much manufacturing is the outsourcing ban

Defense work must stay stateside, otherwise that manufacturing would be gone too. May God have mercy on these corporation CEOs, because when the American people wake up and find out that their country was dismantled from within, they sure as hell won't.

[lib2DaBone]

2. We need to drug test the homeless...it's their own fault.

:sarcasm:

[silverojo]

3. "Social safety net that doesn't exist"

You can say that again! Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" did a lot to contribute to that. Single people, couples, and disabled people (who can't get on SSD/SSI) can't get any welfare benefits at all. Only people with dependent children can.

And it's not just the children you have now...if you keep having children, you keep getting more benefits.

Which is why you have people like Octomom becoming government-sponsored career breeders. Meanwhile, responsible people who wait to have kids (or wait on having additional kids) until they can afford them get fewer benefits, and none if they're childless.

Three times in our lives, my family has been homeless, living in hotel/motel rooms. So I know exactly what these unfortunate people are going through.