Michigan News
(2009-07-14)
Listen Now:
null
But there's another statistic we don't hear much about. People who've lost their homes...are about to...or are afraid they will...are paying an emotional price.
Linda Johnson is 62 years old. She's a retired elementary school principal. She has a PhD. And she almost lost the home she's owned for 30 years.
Johnson's home was paid off, but she took a new mortgage to pay for her daughter's education.
She believed she was getting a fixed-rate loan at six-and-a-half percent interest.
What Johnson actually got was an adjustable rate mortgage that jumped to 12 percent. She felt duped, but for her, there was something much worse:
"I mean I'm very angry at myself for not reading it more carefully. It's hard to talk about it because it's admitting to everyone, that, as a reading teacher, I didn't read carefully."
Johnson tried to tackle the problem herself. She worked with her lender for a year, trying to reduce the interest rate. She spent hours on hold, and being shuffled from person to person.
Johnson's lender eventually cut her interest rate -- to 11 and a half percent. It wasn't enough. The payments were too high, and Johnson was worn down by worry and frustration.
"Well, all the time that I was working on it, I was thinking am I going to be here, what's going to happen to me. It's very stressful. You're always on edge, always on edge. It never goes away."
Johnson was close to losing her home. Then she saw a newspaper story about federal legislation that might help her. She called Senator Carl Levin's office, and they told Johnson about the Wayne County Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program.
She was one of the first clients. They helped her get a fixed-rate mortgage at the original terms and saved her home.
Now, less than two years later, Johnson works for the program. She helps others save their homes.
Judith Margreum is a psychologist in Southfield.
She says no one is immune to the foreclosure crisis:
"It's affecting middle class, upper class, it doesn't matter what class it is. CEOs are losing their jobs and they're faced with huge mortgages that they have to find a way to either manage or get into a smaller place, and readjust their entire lifestyle. So I'm seeing a huge amount of stress and anxiety related to that."
Margreum says that stress and anxiety can affect the entire family:
"Sometimes they try to pretend like everything's normal, but it comes out in other ways because they're irritable. They yell at the children more, and the children pick up on the tension, so they may bring children in because they're not behaving well, they're having sleeping problems, or the children are depressed and sad."
Margreum says many people going through foreclosure feel like they're letting others down. They're embarrassed and ashamed.
"For men, particularly, or single parents, there's a sense that they're not doing their job -- that they're a failure now. How could they possibly lose their job, lose their house, and they're not taking care of responsibility for family. And that's a huge issue for people."
Some relationships are destroyed by the financial stress But Margreum says sometimes, people discover something. They find a new connection to their family, their faith, and their community.
"We got away from that because we had to work 60 hours a week to pay your mortgage, and then you had to drive your kids 14 different places because you thought that's what you should do, and take them out to expensive dinners, when really, people are finding that it's more fun to sit home and play monopoly, have picnic in the backyard, you don't have to spend all that money."
Margreum and Johnson both say if you're facing foreclosure, do SOMETHING. Contact your lender. Call 211. Find a counselor. Not opening the mail or not answering the phone won't make foreclosure go away. © Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio
Newsletters and Daily Email
Podcasts
Mobile
RSS
