I will share my opinion in broad terms of two areas: stigma and shift of power to business away from citizens. We need to overcome the stigma that those most affected by the housing and economic crisis experience; we are perceived as deadbeats by our neighbors, family, employers, politicians, judges, etc., regardless of the reason for our extreme financial distress. We are marginalized by the power of big business lobbying every corner of our political system.
There are many more educated in the legal system than I am. Many foreclosure defense attorneys and political activists have blogs trying to inform the general public that we are all victims of the financial industry and trying to shame our government representatives (elected or appointed) into protecting the People. In my opinion, these efforts (as informative as they are) have been impotent to affect change.
What do I suggest we do? We need to build community, like LoanSafe, where we keep hope alive and have empathetic listeners who understand our plight; we must keep hope alive. We need to expand on that hope by sharing our story to as many people as possible through direct communication. During that communication, we need to gently relate our financial distress to that which everyone is feeling: all property values are dropping, groceries cost more, our wages (if we are fortunate enough to have a job) are stagnant. The goal here should be two-fold: share our financial distress and gently educate those people close to us that we are voting people into office against our own financial best interests.
Political activism. There is an upcoming rally in Tallahassee on Thursday February 16, 2012. Go, learn, participate, and share ideas. The .pdf I posted with the votes of the subcommittee to bring HB213 to the full House needs to be researched. For example, there are three representatives from Palm Beach County that voted to proceed with this bill. We/I need to find out how many homes have been foreclosed in PBC, how many are in foreclosure, and the future projected rates of foreclosure. I/We need to connect with people who live in those districts to communicate this information so they can use it to share their displeasure with how their representatives are voting against their interests. I/We need to do that with every district whose representative voted for bringing the bill to the floor. More aggressive political activism would be funding a PAC to lobby our interests and inform the public. We cannot compete with the deep pockets of the entrenched financial industry in Washington D.C. or Tallahassee, but we can make a difference.
We need to maintain balance in how we communicate these issues. Some will shut us out immediately as they have made up their minds that we are degenerate losers and are the cause of all their ills. Just as you fear for your job, moderates do not feel our pain (or realize their own pain) and they just want to go about their lives and seem to be able to shut out the problems of the many. The other main group is sympathetic to our cause but is so overwhelmed with the stress of financial distress they cannot muster the strength to help themselves through politically activist means. We need to gently sway the moderates and those in financial distress to follow the steps outlined above. It is a very precarious balance we must achieve. We cannot be too provocative to alienate but we need to communicate the urgency of our cause, that but for a layoff, illness, etc. they could be in our shoes in the blink of an eye.
For what it is worth, this is my take. Please read my words and let me hear your thoughts.
Fvvvvr regarding your own difficulties, although I do not know all of the specifics of your situation, I do know that it is close to impossible to continue to make payments that you cannot afford on a house significantly underwater. You are going to have to make a business decision whether it is in your best interest to throw good money after bad. There is very little you can do to minimize the damage that decision will have on your credit. It is not legal for an employer to discriminate against a current employee for experiencing financial problems including bankruptcy or foreclosure. However, I know it is not that simple. Employers do consider credit backgrounds prior to making new hires; that is legal.
Let us brainstorm this; it will help the entire LoanSafe community.
