A Teaching Moment:
No matter what I’ve done in life I’ve always tried to pass my knowledge on to the next person. When I was a hairstylist I would teach people what I was doing with chemicals applied and styling tips. When I did real estate I would teach my clients the process of the sale. I don’t like to hold things back. There is nothing more rewarding for me than passing on what I have learned in life so maybe it could help the next person. I want to pass on to you my experience being in foreclosure for the past year. I want other people to know if they’re in the same position not to feel the shame associated with foreclosure because there are many floating in the same boat.
At first I felt shame about the position we found ourselves in. We have children; it’s not just the two of us anymore. I’m responsible to assure they are provided with the things needed to survive in society set up for them. I felt I had failed my children by allowing this to happen. When we were first served with foreclosure papers I suffered from panic attacks for weeks. When I was alone I couldn’t help but break down crying. Then one day something flipped in my thinking. I decided I didn’t need this house I called a home. I could make a home anywhere for my children. There are many repairs needed, the value dropped almost $100K in the past couple of years. I decided it was time to move on. I learned when selling real estate he who cares less wins. When I had this change of thought I could breathe again. The stress left me.
I’m sharing this because we’ve had conversations in sewing class. Many of my students have lost their homes, in the process of foreclosure or behind in payments and close to foreclosure. Here in Broward County we have 200 filings a day at the courthouse with 2000 empty homes and growing in my city, Hollywood. We as home owners are broken. The society in which we live is broken. It’s going to take a lot to fix society – to make it a better place for all of us, for our children. How do we fix it? There is power in numbers. We need to help one another by passing on what we know and putting into action our knowledge. When you do nothing – nothing will happen – we have no change. To show how powerful we are when we stand together we only have to look at the last election. Usually we only get 25-30% at the polls. When we elected Obama more than 65% showed up to vote and in some places 85%. (thank you for voting!)
I’m thankful Obama is our president. If it wasn’t for him our house would be empty right now. Through save our homes program we were able to keep our home. If we were going through this process in 2008 we would not be living here today. We went through a non profit for help. It was paid for through save our homes program. They had the power to demand we were given a fair deal through the loan modification process. They brought our principal amount down $70K (using the value of the house that just sold next door), gave us a 40 year mortgage at 2% interest which cut our monthly payments more than half.
How did we find ourselves in this position as a society? We have a class war going on right now. . The rich took too much money out of the system and we the so called middle class are suffering. We were sold a bad product in mortgages over the years where we were making interest only payments to keep our monthly payments down. There weren’t many 30 year loans being made because the rich could make more money selling us another product. For us, because both of us own our own business and are considered self employed – they don’t except our income while applying for a mortgage. We didn’t qualify for the 30 year fixed. We were told to take what was being offered and in the future we would qualify for a fixed rate.
Our economy here in South Florida has been suffering for a couple of years. It wasn’t long after I opened Learn 2 Sew many of my students would talk about why they wanted to learn the art of sewing. To either save money or to start business because they lost their jobs. Many of my students have been looking for work for a long time. There’s one thing about the unemployment numbers that are spewed at us. They say we’re close to 10% nation wide. It’s actually much higher. When you loose your job you can collect unemployment. And if you’re self employed meaning you’re the boss you don’t get to collect unemployment if your business goes under. A lot of people I talk to have been looking for jobs for over a year. You don’t get to collect unemployment that long. The unemployment numbers we hear all the time don’t reflect the people who have been looking for work a long time. We have a lot of people out of work here in So Flo.
When people are out of work they stop spending money. They only buy what is needed, not what they want. They don’t use my husband’s services as a cabinet maker to redo their kitchens fix up their houses. My husband makes most of the money to pay our bills. When you have a lot more going out each month in bills with very little coming in eventually you’re going to hit bottom and the bank accounts dry up.
Some people want to blame the homeowner for the problems with the housing market. This wasn’t our fault what happened to us. It’s not your fault if it’s happening to you. People lost our jobs, had no income thus couldn’t pay what we agreed at one point we could pay. We didn’t know our financial situation would collapse the way it did. The rich took too much money out of the system with our mortgages, paying high prices for gas, watching our food prices rise. With everything costing more while our jobs are leaving the system was bound to break.
Standing on my soapbox: How do we change things? We only have 2 powers.
We have the power where we spend our money. When companies start merging into one we need to tell ourselves not to give them our business to make them bigger. Go for the mom and pop businesses to make them rich. Corporations are not people. We need to help one another by giving our money to real people and their business not corporations.
Our other power is in the vote. The government decides how society is set up for us. We’re going through this right now with health care reform. You may think the corporations own our government. They may give them a lot of money with lobbying but we hold the power with our vote. If our representatives aren’t doing what we need to make it a better society for all of us we need to replace them with people who will. We need to educate ourselves what happens in DC. And we need to vote in every election to make this a better place for all of us on this planet. We’ve learned from the past years how important we are in the world economy. If we do the right thing and stick together (power in numbers) we can make it a better place for future generations not to have to go through what we’re living through today. Jumping down off my soapbox
One thing I’ve learned through this whole process. It’s the state of mind you put yourself – not your surroundings. A lesson I learned from this little girl. My happiness comes from my own thoughts. It’s my choice.
A house is a house – A home is a house filled with love. I will always have a home no matter where our family lives.
I ask the universe all the time (pray) to bring me things that fill our lives with smiles. I don’t value money. I value people and this is why I am sharing my experience with you. After we are given the things we ask for we must always say thank you. So with eyes closed and a heavy sigh I say – Thank you!
Enjoy your moments – live is such a precious gift!
Cindy
Homeowners help in Broward County Florida
Cross posted