I attended a session today at the local Quaker Meeting on the subprime mess and what, if anything, members can do to help people in need. I had never attend a Quaker gathering so it was really refreshing to be among people whose commitment is to make a better world.
The session was facilitated by my friend whose the head of a regional council of churches and the panel included a lawyer versed in foreclosures and short sales and mortgage banker from a major commercial bank. Listening to the questions from the attendees it became quickly clear that the issue at hand was not an abstraction or foreign. What was being discussed were a set of circumstances that in some way affected many of the people in the room--either directly or indirectly. Some were younger people with modest incomes with fewer routes to home financing. Others were elders that seemed way too familiar with the downsides of the reverse mortgage trade. Yet others knew people, mostly professional types, that due to life problems (health issues, divorce, loss of employment), found themselves cascading towards bankruptcy, foreclosure and IRS troubles.
According to my friend from the council--who, btw, has been helping church leaders figure out ways to help their distressed parishioners, many of the folks that are teetering are middle class folks that bought bigger, pricier homes at the height of the bubble. He says that they are all around us on Long Island but may not be recognizable. Their homes are not shuttered, most are employed, and they're probably still driving late model cars. But many are cruising towards financial ruin. He says that this is a class of people that have a particularly difficult time accepting the reality of their financial problems--and that many may indeed be in denial.
What are the signs of these private crises? The ubiquitous "for sale" signs during a contracting market.
Not satisfied with the notion that there's little anybody can do to fix the problem, a member of the Quaker Meeting announced that her group was exploring setting up a fund to help--even if only a few families--afford their mortgages. Another discussion centered around the use of land trusts, entities that hold land in common and, thus, reduce the cost of home purchases. These ideas contrast dramatically w/the current system, but I have to hand it to the Quakers: They are alert to the problem and they're doing their part to fix it.
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