Tonight I talked to my mom who was ecstatic over Biden's debate performance (I think she has a crush on him, honestly). Then I sent out a few emails to friends with my favorite video links from the debate. Next, I started freeping some debate polls. But I ran into a story on one poll webpage that stopped me in tracks.
On a Cleveland TV station website, the headline read at the top of the page:
Woman, 90, Apparently Shoots Self During Foreclosure Eviction
There were so many things wrong with this headline that I had to read the whole story.
Officials said when the deputies knocked on the front door of the home located in the 1100 block of Lacroix Avenue they did not get an answer. They heard a banging noise coming from the second floor of the home........The homeowner likely shot herself.
........According to court records, four years ago, the homeowner took out a loan against her house. The home was appraised at $28,000. As of last year, she owed more than $45,000 on the loan.
So apparently this woman, like so many other homeowners was lured into the refinance game: borrow against the equity in your home and bet that you'll get more equity in tomorrow as its value increases. I remember the mail I was receiving four years ago. A week didn't go by that I didn't receive something from a mortgage company promising tens of thousands of dollars. Some of them made the promise in the form of a fake check that was damned tempting with all those zeroes left of the decimal point. Many of the offers explicitly stated that my home would only increase in value so borrowing against it to the hilt had no consequences. I've always had the goal of paying off my home early, so I never increased the mortgage against it.
But what if I were 86 years old and I had some repairs to do that I couldn't afford on a monthly Social Security check? What if I found that my fixed income wasn't keeping up with the rate of inflation for food, heating oil, or other necessities? What if I simply wasn't aware that the value of my home could go down as well as up?
According to the story, the woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital. No word yet on her condition, but she's 90 years old with at least one self-inflicted gunshot wound, so who knows whether she will survive.
I know one thing, though. This is why I support Obama - so that the most vulnerable among us won't be forgotten. So that our senior citizens will have a secure retirement when they become too old to work, and if something does go wrong, there will be a safety net that holds out more hope for them then the business end of a gun. No one should ever live to be 90 only to see suicide as a viable alternative to homelessness.
This is why we fight, folks.
UPDATE: The woman's name is being reported as Addie Polk. Also, earlier reports state that she is expected to recover. Thanks for the tips and the Recs. I think this is a story that everyone here should know about.