Hang Onto Your House

The headlines have followed one on top of another in the last four years like cresting waves in a monsoon. Eight million American homes are in foreclosure: their owners are so far behind in their mortgage payments that their banks the mortgage holders are denying them the option of paying up and are moving to seize their homes. Another 11 million households find themselves “underwater” — that is the value of their homes has fallen below the balance they owe on their mortgages which some market analysts say is a prime indicator of a mortgage about to go into foreclosure. And the number of jobless working-age Americans — which some pundits dub the “real unemployment rate” — is up to 23 percent which means countless more face a dire struggle to remain in their homes. The waves keep crashing and the waters show no signs of receding.

When faced with foreclosure some homeowners will gracefully throw in the towel and leave. But in the close-knit Jewish community where everyone knows his neighbor’s business the stigma of foreclosure can be devastating.

“It’s a well hidden secret” says Rabbi Avrohom Jaffe executive director of the Southern Brooklyn Community Organization (SBCO) the housing division of Agudath Israel. “Many American homeowners don’t have a problem allowing their homes to go into foreclosure. There is not such a stigma attached to it in the larger society. In the Jewish community however it’s altogether different. It’s been very difficult to get our olam to face the problem.”

Pinny F. an investor who already lost three properties to foreclosure in Florida and is threatened with the loss of two more acknowledges his own feelings of struggle and shame as he watched helplessly while the floodwaters rose.