I
suppose this opinion comes out of a mixture of pain, outrage and annoyance reluctantly
as my pride as a homeowner is offended. I am a lifelong resident of Bedford
Stuyvesant. My home was purchased by my Barbadian grandfather. Family lore has
it that we were the first Black family on this block. My mother gave me the
house in 1998.
This
brownstone is over 100 years old and as such requires constant repairs. So I
did what a lot of short sighted people do I took out a mortgage initially to do
repairs my mother had long neglected. A bad mistake; this was in the beginning
of the predatory mortgage days. For those of you who opted out of the
experience, this is the way it works. A borrower was lent an amount. If you had
doubts about your ability to pay or as in some cases you didn’t know what to
say (I’m being tactful) the nice mortgage broker would help you fill out the
paperwork, even find an appraiser. Soon you realized you couldn’t make your payments,
a new lender appeared to bail you out with a larger loan at a higher rate. Over
and over. Over the next eleven years I went through seven or more mortgage
companies. It’s hard to tell because companies change names, change owners (?),
sell your mortgage without warning to other mortgage companies so that you or
at least I became hopelessly confused. Just so you gain some perspective I have
three degrees and retired on disability from an excellent city job. I am no
dummy.
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Each
month involved phone calls, lien threats, foreclosure threats, neighborhood consultants
(that don’t call back or no longer exist), so called mortgage forgiveness
corporations (that are almost guaranteed to be fraudulent), short sale predators,
so-called free grant sites (that are seldom free). The voluntary
neighborhood services designed (and funded) to “help” (at least in my case)
often are staffed by former (you guessed it) mortgage brokers and/or banker who
counsels you to (surprise) refinance yet again. And the neighborhood services
designed (and funded) to “help” are often non-responsive, especially when they
perceive you are in too deep of a hole.
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Federal
modification/forgiveness programs rarely reach their intended targets as their
administration is dependent on the very same mortgage companies to oversee the
modifications or to grant God help us loan forgiveness. So the solutions
offered are invariably increased mortgage payments, liens and loans to pay off
a new loan until eventually you cannot pay. Then foreclosure.
This
is old news, so why am I bringing this up? Well recently there has been another
round of “us and them” rants about “losing the neighborhood” or “moving in” The
truth is many families just could not afford to keep their homes. And folks
that were priced out of Manhattan scooped them up.
As
a former social worker currently on the other side of the desk so to speak I
find it disheartening that there is such a reality slippage between the policy intent
and the ground level reality. Suggestions?
JH
Hawkins LMSW, PhD submitted Saturday May 10, 2014
Dr.
Hawkins is a social policy analyst that is currently living in Bed-Stuy
