Workshops For Stalling Foreclosures

January 29th, 2008

Carmen Rosa is one of the many battling foreclosure. The value of her Brockton house has gone down $100,000 but her mortgage payment has shot up by $600 per month. She tried in vain to contact the lender but was given a cold shoulder. Having to look after 6 children this nursing assistant does not know where to turn to.

US Rep Stephen Lynch is active in organizing a workshop in Randolph High School cafeteria to help many like Carmen Rosa. More than 200 sufferers turned up. The aim is to work out a viable programme to buy time and allow the victims to reorganize themselves. Lynch, a Democrat from South Boston, assured everyone that this was not something to be ashamed about as thousands across the country are in the same boat. Lynch could well understand the travails of foreclosure as he himself as a child had seen how his parents in the Old Colony housing in South Boston had struggled to own a house. So he could relate to the pains of losing one.

Andrea Braxton is another victim who found herself in a soup when her husband lost his job. She is finding it impossible to continue with her daughter’s college fees and meet rising mortgage payments with her teaching job. She does not want to lose either the job or her daughter’s future. From June she has begun to fall behind payments but the banks are indifferent to her plight.

Dorothy White of Randolph was one of those attending the workshop. She said her contact with a counselor on Saturday has made her hopeful. But a 48-year-old state social worker from Dorchester was pessimistic. He had fallen behind six months and now that the house that was his home all his life is going to slip away he is feeling like a destitute homeless.

In Massachusetts foreclosure listings shot up by 148%. From 3,086 in 2006 it jumped to 7,653 in 2007 according to figures released by The Warren Group. Compared to 2005 there was a sevenfold increase in foreclosures in 2007.

The wealth of a nation – the real wealth is its people, its animals, its forests, air and water. But when the people are despondent then the core and the heart of the nation slows down its beat. Foreclosures have been to the lenders what the touch of gold had been to King Midas!