Florida Matters; Facing the Mortgage Crisis: A Florida Matters Special

I. The following is a presentation of WSF and Bay News 9. The dream of becoming a homeowner is as American as apple pie. But with the increase in subprime loans massive job losses and homes turning into 80 m machines our nation is now suffering one of the worst mortgage crises in history and the Tampa Bay area is no exception. Welcome to facing the mortgage crisis of Florida matters Special Ed..

Hi I'm Irene Mayer and I'm El Rochelle from Bay News 9 joining Irene for this very important community initiative to connect people in need with information and services they can trust. Free services available right now in our community. You know it was a logo what a young couple could buy a house raise a family and expect to grow old there. That part of the American dream is quickly becoming a fantasy for hundreds of thousands of families. You can go to just about any neighborhood and see the telltale signs of abandoned homes overgrown yards broken windows broken dreams rows of real estate signs now decorate properties on the streets of the rich and poor in the suburbs. Cities and rural areas from condos to mansions it seems no homeowners have been left untouched thriving subdivisions have come to a complete halt leaving half built homes in their wake. Many homes in foreclosure were bought by investors trying to flip them for a quick profit.

But most of the homes in our foreclosure crisis are occupied by people you see every day. They are working families who somehow got behind on their mortgage payments and now face uncertainty and constant stress to help put a face on the mortgage crisis we met four sets of homeowners all live right here in the Bay Area and all of them are in different stages of the foreclosure process. They are the faces behind the statistics. They could be your best friend or coworker or a family member or neighbor. None of them expected to lose their home. Here are their stories. This one's for. You. It's a typical evening at the Rodriguez home. Eileen Rodriguez and her husband Javier get dinner ready. Their daughters Julie and Lori play close and I still get daily life now revolves around decisions both Monday. I'm like what did we have for dinner too

monumental. Will we be able to keep our home. The path leading to Eileen and Javier struggled to keep their home began with Eileen's job loss. She lost her job. We thought that would be like a month or two for her to find another job. We despite the we almost a year with Eileen and Javier struggle continued with a counseling agency dropping their case because the counselor couldn't get through to the bank. An inconsistent advice from the bank representatives Eileen and Javier spoke with one lady. Because you know acrobats and if you have a week and see us guys we displace crimes I'll tell you no wait for the minutes we call back again and we did that and then I leave it was OK because good the night we have 90 days to reify again and then we call again and then they give us another option and we do in 45 minutes. So with inside of five minutes you will have a complete different answer for Eileen and Javier it's not so much about keeping a certain address and way of life but more

about keeping a dream alive for their family. So it's hard you know to tell your children you have to move on in your home without your home anymore. They don't understand that Eileen and Javier were able to find a housing counseling agency to work with them on their case and a mediation between them and their bank has been scheduled. Their fate lies in the outcome of the pending mediation. Amy Bruno owns a condo in Safety Harbor and never expected to face losing her home to foreclosure. Her problems began with a series of layoffs during a time when the market became flooded with applicants finding work in any field is now competitive. I had no problems paying this mortgage on the salary that I was getting at any of my jobs I've never had a problem like I have today. Even my condo dues have escalated. She tried on her own to get a loan modification through the bank.

So it's a walkover. They told me that I would have to be put on a waiting list it was first come first serve. I never heard anything back from walkover yet. After six months when that didn't work she looked for help elsewhere. My neighbor happened to mention to me about had the agent say she had heard it through her boss and how she had gotten her mortgage paid for through head agency. So I thought well you know I'll give it a try. Because I was in such a financial you know buying any computers the process of getting her loan modified to what it's like looking for work it's a job in itself just trying to get a loan modification. Waiting three hours are you know online on the telephone waiting for a walkover answer the phone sitting on there for maybe 45 minutes transferring from loan modification to another department and waiting waiting. I mean even with your counselor they have no in that you still have to she says she's

just a number two. Meanwhile Amy continues to update her paperwork if any of her information changes. It all has to be filled out again. As it turns out Amy got married two months ago. So while she's adjusting to her new life with her husband she's also adjusting her paperwork. They have yet to receive the letters of authority that it's OK for to go ahead and arbitrate for me. You just have to keep faxing stuff and. Keeping up with your bank statements the day to day grind of simultaneously looking for work and trying to save her home is taking its toll. Well at the beginning this stress that brought on the initial of not being able to find a job due to the fact you're being laid off or being laid off one or two times but then a third and a fourth within four years is very frustrating

and at some point you feel like giving up. What what's the what's why why I continue. But then I look around at my home and. And I think of all the good things that have happened to me and. I just know things are going to turn around they say they get worse before they get better but. I understand that people are frustrated. You know. Omar creek and his wife YOUR each have two young children list God and your needs the family has lived in their home for four years. Two months after moving in your Rita lost her job. The couple decided it was best for your Rita to stay home full time and care for a list OD who has autism. Find a doctor with that finding and was up to me took it but the payments on the family home were pretty high by then.

I've been a buyer like BET for oh I don't know but I can make anymore because I lost you know the economy is going down you know. They I was called down to our wharf. With Omar's hours cut the family was forced to re-evaluate their sources of income. Eureka went back to school and got certified as a nurse's assistant. But by that time they had fallen behind in enough payments that the bank started foreclosure proceedings. Omar had no luck negotiating with the bank for a loan modification and decided to contact a local housing counseling agency. He offered for some paperwork pay stops. What was the situation about it. He put everything together. Facts are all around talk to our friend who got over there and that's when they say like the mall start rolling towards life for Mom he said on WHAT ABOUT of those going to take a long time. But we're going to do something about it.

Working with the HUD approved agency has helped Omar navigate the proper channels he needs to take. They know like their step I got a follow you know they say you need and you need to do this and that and provide it. I just put everything together to take care of it. You know he did a. Popular because I just gave him the spray stops. Wired Was this is the way of what was the problem you are spraying everything to him. He took care of it. The stress of trying to pay the bills with one income and taking care of their special needs son has been overwhelming at times. For him I call him very sleep. It I had and I marched off stuff like that. So what I was going to do is going to. Join McRae Fox and her husband Doug are very familiar with the frustrations of trying to get a loan modified Joye describes their 31 month ordeal as a mortgage mess.

We have been living here since 97 12 years. We thought I was going to a temporary problem. My husband lost his job after 10 years and you know we thought we'd get back on track from that we can to make our point mortgage payments. And then I lost my job in the same year which was really the death knell for her for being able to continue the escalating payments. But then just the rate that went up while our income was going down stuck in an adjustable rate mortgage joy and Doug made repeated attempts to work out payment arrangements with their bank. I started calling saying we're going to be in a crisis. We can't do this you know please can you look at it. Can we get modified what can we do. Nothing nothing. Denial denial denial. Then when I lost my job I we were still making payments you know iron reasserted. But now we're really going to be here Drabble This is absolutely going to be impossible. And we continue to make payments all the way up. I lost my job in November of 0 7 we made payments up to May of 0 8.

Intel they returned a payment and refused to take a partial payment. Joy began filing important documents and notes from conversations with the bank in a notebook. I thought it would be helpful going to court. I thought it would be helpful trying to justify why they didn't have to foreclose why they didn't have to have attorneys fees. It didn't help much but it helps me keep trying. She now has three large notebooks detailing the 31 month struggle to keep her home. Communication letters of hardship requests for medications everything to do with the mortgage mess. And my mortgage mess timeline which is now five six Excel pages trying to get tracked. We're waiting for an agreement from the mortgage that made us the offer that we can live with. After 31 months of trying to get a modification and spoke to a representative at a housing counseling session I followed up with them and they've supposed to be sending the paper

since June 30th while we were talking with joy at her home her mail came and with it a potential new agreement from her mortgage company. Is it from the accident. Yes. OK. You don't know what it could be. So there we have been waiting a case for a letter. Now going from pure eat lation to despair is part of the fox's daily life while trying to save their home. It's been very difficult it's been you know at one point we thought we had the clothes we had the closing we're like oh yeah we're to have a painting party. You know it was over and then it was like now we're down to we don't know for packing boxes yet. And now up and down is very hard. Amy and Eileen struggled to find permanent work and a dependable income are

commonplace worries among hundreds of thousands of homeowners. Many are just one paycheck away from disaster and finding that good intentions are not enough to pay the mortgage. From creating and recreating resumes and scouring the Internet. Do attending local job and education fairs and working with job assistance groups. Nine hundred and seventy thousand people in Florida are dealing with unemployment and the struggle to find a job in today's market. That's more than one in every 10 people more than the national average and more than any other time in the past 34 years. The result is a domino effect with no income. There's no money to pay the bills including the mortgage and that's led to a growing number of people like Amy enjoy who are at risk of losing their homes because they lost their jobs. Bill Sanchez from the Tampa Bay Community Development Corporation estimates about 70 percent of the clients who come to the HUD approved agency fall into this group.

The problem is that the unemployment is lasting a lot longer than than it used to. We're going to have some people being out of work for over a year. Without an income to show the lender It is very difficult to negotiate any type of loss mitigation option for them. It's why he encourages people to contact his group or another HUD approved counseling agency. As soon as they lose their job or think there's a chance that they could soon be unemployed. The reason I say that is because speaking with the bank the client might get lost either the wrong department or speaking to the wrong person. Come into how to prove agency we can actually help the client explain the process and be able to get in touch with the right department was so few jobs available. Many are finding the little savings they have can run out quickly. So in addition to being proactive with finances to have a workforce Alliance Elizabeth Magnussen says you have to be proactive in your job search. Most people do have skills that they can transfer from one job to another and so they need to take a step back and take an evaluation of what their actual skills are maybe not what their job is but what their actual skills are and see what they

can transfer those skills over into another career. She says. That goes for entry level workers to high paid professionals and everyone in between. That's where the Tampa Bay workforce alliance and similar programs under Florida's agency for workforce innovation can help. Now thanks to a 3 million dollar grant from the federal government A.W. wise one stop career centers like this one will be able to provide even more assistance. The statewide programs offer counseling services job training and career fairs. They also offer a full calendar of classes and networking opportunities. Most of the jobs that people are getting hired for is through networking. So make sure you network. In some cases that could mean volunteering or taking an internship. For others it could mean taking a job in a different area or salary range than what you're used to. You can't be afraid to go for a job. Maybe it's retail you know just to bring in some money so that you can keep

your home so that you can keep food on the table and till you can find that job that you're really looking for no matter what your level or if you're just looking for something to get you through the tough times. The Web site employs Florida has positions for just about everyone. There are jobs out there. They're just not as many as there used to be. Sometimes though you're in an industry that's just not doing well at all and it's not looking like it's going to bounce back. You really need to maybe think about going into something like health care that is ongoing there are always jobs in health care. You know green jobs is another one that we're going to see I think the near future. Is going to be growing. The difference could also be just getting a certificate or a few classes to gain the skills you're missing. Elizabeth suggests making a list and looking for a job similar to the one you've had and a counselor or employer Florida DOT COM can help you do just that.

Once you've figured out where you want to go what you want to do. Then you start marketing yourself. Get the training if you need it redo your resume to reflect your skills and not your job and start applying to those jobs. She encouraged that before it's too late. You should also aim to put aside three to six months pay in case you're faced with unemployment. If you're looking for a dental assistant because as Amy and joy have learned an open minded determination and time may be just as important as a good resume. Will post information about the workforce Alliance and other valuable job resources on our website at Tampa Bay mortgage crisis dot o r g. While Amy and Eileen are looking for permanent work joy and Omar are still facing work related challenges that increase their doubts of keeping their homes. At the auto shop where Omar works business has slowed down and now Omar works only three days a week.

Right now like I say they work something with 40 still pretty boy crossing my finger hopefully they start picking up again. Let's see what hopping and I have the dog. Your read say has begun working the overnight shift as a nurse's assistant at St. Joseph Hospital and takes care of their son during the day. It isn't easy but the family wants to do whatever it takes to get by. They were able to refinance their loans so as long as their income remains relatively steady they should be on good standing with their mortgage lender. Joy remains hopeful about the loan modification her mortgage company offered. Going forward with an offer to seem fair and as long as we can do that we can do it. There's just been there's so much confusion one department telling me one thing another department I'm I'm cautiously optimistic is my word. But until I get the paperwork and until they take another payment from me and I don't I am not breathing a sigh of relief yet I'm not buying bank.

A couple of days after we spoke to joy at her home we visited her workplace. Joy helps take care of Pinellas County as homeless population at Pinellas hope it's a source of irony not lost on Joy. While I'm trying to help them start over I'm trying to hold on to what I have. Kind of humbling and I am grateful for what we have. And I guess it makes me even more determined that lives at a place designed to offer love kindness and joy. It's hard to imagine the strength it must take to offer hope when you're facing a crisis of your own. It would be a probably a major upheaval because if we can't stay here in this home. Maybe that's the time to move closer to family or maybe that's the time to try to do the traveling horse wanted to do or maybe. They don't want to. We don't want to answer those questions right now because we don't want that that happen.

The letter joy and dog have been waiting for from their mortgage company is delivered days later. Finally we got the papers. It's what we've been waiting for. There are a couple problems as you know we have approximately 13 hundred dollars sitting there they seem to forget to put in a listing. It is what we verbally agreed to a couple different things with a fixed rate and a base payment that we can make. I mean if the I think the nightmare is over this is what we're waiting for. Doug loves to garden in their backyard. Maybe now it won't be as fit or sweet. I want things to get back to normal you know. I like things in my backyard you know I like to put stuff out there like the grove loudest that I came to damn I know to go take my house. So I kind of put everything on hold and now we're just working through it again and we'll see what happens. Joy Omar Eileen and Amy were all approached by people trying to offer them a quick fix for their mortgage problems. Some were asked to pay a fee up front or even

sign their title over. But each homeowner had a gut feeling that something was wrong. Sadly foreclosure scams are on the rise and many homeowners in crisis are so desperate to save their homes that they easily fall victim to this type of crime. It starts with a knock on the door a phone call a letter or an e-mail. They promise instant relief for all of your foreclosure fears. It sounds too good to be true and it is. In Orlando we did a workshop about three months ago and I saw about 10 clients in eight out of the 10 that actually go to one of these companies. They came to us. William Sanchez hears numerous accounts every day of foreclosure scammers robbing financially strapped homeowners out of hundreds of dollars with nothing done to help the situation. A lot of the times though they'll get the money and then they'll close up. Change names move away and do the same thing someplace else. There are some situations where they are told that they can be rescued out of foreclosure and if they for example transfer their property to them

they will hold it for a year transfer it back to them after the years gone and then they end up getting evicted because at that point they're a tenant. They're paying rent. They're not the homeowner anymore. The Federal Trade Commission put together a series of PSA to help homeowners avoid falling victim to foreclosure scams. The financial problems started when I was injured at work. There was no money coming in. I had to figure something out quick. They recommend homeowners first contact the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also known as hard to get a listing of government approved housing counselors in your area. The HUD approved agency to not charge for their services is this a very good reason why the fact that we don't charge for the services but is in a much better position to be able to help the client. And if a homeowner has already fallen victim to a foreclosure scam there is still hope. A lot of the times. The foreclosure scam company has it would be done much with the lender so we can actually call up the lender and figure out what they've done and what they haven't

done and what help the client from that point. Linda Pickler with Consumer Credit Counseling Services recommends that victims of foreclosure scams report the incident to proper authorities. The best thing that I could tell a person to do is call the Florida Department of Financial Services. That's one of the main things that they do is work with individuals that have been victims of scams and they will actually file a complaint on your behalf. And Vicki Carver understands the stress homeowners feel but cautions against a quick fix. I don't want people to think that if you go to an attorney or that you go to somebody who you know like we're saying before you pay to help that they can get through any of this of this you know delay they can. We have to do the same thing that the bar has to do which is call the loss mitigation department and said on the phone on hold and and try to get you know things that way we have to fill out all these paperwork and and and just wait it is going to take time. It's not easy but.

They need to get started as soon as possible just to get in there and get him out line. It's scary to think that in your greatest hour of need there are people ready to take advantage of you. But we want to help. We've posted the information our experts just gave you about avoiding foreclosure scams on our website. Go to Tampa Bay mortgage crisis dot o r g. Well as the weeks went by on our production of facing the mortgage crisis we kept checking in on our homeowners to see what news if any came regarding their mortgage problems. Well here's where they are now. I leanin Javier's loan modification is still pending. After mediation. The bank was granted 60 days to work on their case. Eileen and Javier had to sign a confidentiality agreement and cannot comment further. They remain hopeful for a positive resolution. Amy's husband Gerard just got a new job with a fitness center and has been offered a job working there as well. She has to go to training first which the company will pay for. She's optimistic that this will be a more

permanent source of income. Her loan modification is still pending. Home are in your reed so were able to refinance their home loan and both continue working. Omar hopes his hours will increase when and if the economy picks up. Joy and Doug signed the loan modification from their bank and are breathing a sigh of relief. Their home improvement projects that were put on hold will resume. It's tough to watch people in our area struggle with such life changing dilemmas. We wish the best for the families we met on facing the mortgage crisis and we'll keep you updated with their progress down the road on Tampa Bay mortgage crisis dot o r g. Now the United Way offers free programs to homeowners needing help. If you are facing foreclosure or have a friend a neighbor or even a family member in this situation we urge you to call 2 1 1. We are in this crisis together so we encourage you to share this information with anyone you might know who needs help. As we mentioned throughout the program we've put together a website. Tampa Bay mortgage crisis dot

o r g. That contains resources tips and advice from trusted experts. There's also a forum where you can share your personal experiences in hopes of helping others get through this mortgage crisis. Thank you for joining us on this special edition of Florida matters. I'm Irene Mayer and I'm male Michelle. Thank you so much for spending time with us. This is been a presentation of WSF and Bay News 9.