Hiding away in a tranquil sun-kissed corner of Florida — the dream of many retired Americans — has become a nightmare for some amid the global economic downturn.
The threat of a foreclosure notice being served for unpaid dues and the ensuing homelessness has become a real prospect for thousands.
In the Miami area foreclosures have more than doubled last year. Dade Country figures show that some 26,691 families lost their homes in 2007 versus 56,656 last year.
The Florida panhandle, home to the US’ largest population of retirees, has become a center of financial panic.
“The banks and the mortgage companies just don’t care about us,” 71-year-old Betty Kellogs said. “I think that there’s a lot of the preying on the elderly.”
“I’m just trying to hold my head above water,” she said before stating she could not bear to follow other homeless who live in their cars.
Kellogs, who is recovering from breast cancer and still in poor health, has a house in Sarasota, a short distance from Fort Myers — one the of the areas with the largest number of foreclosures in the US. It was a venue chosen by US President Barack Obama to deliver a speech early last month plugging his economic stimulus plan. Part of that package was a US$75 billion fund to help reduce mortgage payments for those who are struggling to make payments. But Kellogs hold outs little hope that she can be helped.
“The president just can’t help everybody who needs a house, and he will need years to do that. We elderly folks don’t have years. I know that I don’t have years,” she said.
The over 65’s make up nearly 20 percent of the Florida’s 18 million inhabitants.
Many rich business owners from the US’ colder northern states own second and holiday homes, which they visit during the winter months. That is not the case for 77-year-old Terry Quackenbash, a resident of Osprey, also in the Fort Myers area.
He was given a foreclosure notice last year and expects to be out of his home by June.
But Quackenbush is more concerned about the fate of the drug and alcohol addicts who live in the house, which serves as a help center.
“If I get thrown out, I’m really concerned about the people living here,” he said. “Two of them were living in the woods close to here when they came to me for help and I’m afraid that they will have to go back into the woods to live.”
As Miami’s homeless population has swelled, pressure has grown on support groups.
“Because of the foreclosure situation we had increased six times our protection programs for people affected in different ways,” said David Raymond, director of Homeless Trust in Miami Dade. “Our calls from people facing eviction went from about 1,000 calls last year to 4,000 calls this year. So we got four times more people who are looking for help to pay the rent so they can stay out of the homeless system and off the street.”
Felipe Arruabarrena, a 68-year-old Cuban, lives in a homeless shelter in Miami.
“I don’t have an apartment, now they are helping me find something I can afford with my reduced income,” he said.
Carolina Lombardi a senior housing attorney at Legal Services for Greater Miami said there were multiple reasons for the number of old people that are now looking for help.
“Unfortunately many of the older citizens did not understand the terms of the loans that they took out, did not understand that they were adjustable, that they were negative amortization, that the amount on payment did not include the payment for taxes and insurance,” she said.
“Some of the elderly were tricked into finding mortgages that they could have never qualified,” she said, pointing to predatory lending by some brokers.
Valerie Williams, an older Jamaican who took up US nationality in 1994, said she built a house in Tampa but is on the verge of loosing it through foreclosure.
“Truthfully, this has shot my confidence. [I] always believed that if you worked hard, you could earn a house in this country,” she said.
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