Homeowners by the millions are increasingly falling behind on their mortgage payments. The most severe problem is in the states of Nevada, Ohio, Florida, and California with others following a close second after enjoying an ballooning speculative housing economy that has since popped like a birthday party. Gratefully, the mortgage lending industry has instigated its own solutions thanks to the Treasury Department through the program Hope Now, supported by counselors, services, and nonprofit community organizations. They are seeking credit worthy people who are not in financial trouble yet, but may soon be. The motivation of Hope Now is to find ways to help the borrowers stay in their homes.

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Today is a free foreclosure-prevention workshop, sponsored by the city of Orlando, received only six people. Orange County foreclosure rate has shot up to 70 homeowners a day. “If they do not have the sense to show up and get out of trouble, something is very wrong,” City Commissioner Daisy Lynum said at the workshop at the Northwest Community Center in Pine Hills. “I get a call every day regarding foreclosure.” While the housing crisis has cut across all incomes and ethnic groups, it has hit the black community especially hard where home ownership is lower and home equity has become the main source of wealth.

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The reasons the housing market is in such a disarray are obvious when talking about the banking industry – making big bucks fast. But what made so many regular Joe Citizens get into a situation that was doomed from the start? It is important that we understand the human side of the decisions that made the crisis what it is. Hopefully so that we do not walk this life-changing road again. Values in America have changed drastically. Owning a home in the early 20th century was a life long dream that people worked hard for and did not engage in until they were confident they were ready for the responsibility.

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Mr. Ferguson is retired on a fixed income, was diagnosed with dementia several years ago. He has a hard time remembering that he visited his daughter in Jamaica before she died of cancer two summers ago. While he moved to Brooklyn over 30 years ago, he often doesn’t remember the move from Jamaica via London. Karlene Grant, a cost accountant at a large Manhattan property management firm, is Mr. Ferguson’s daughter and manager of his financial and legal affairs.

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If borrowers having trouble in this housing crisis have plans of using the jingle mail method of walking out on their mortgages, they better think longer before making that step. You most certainly will feel the pain. Fannie Mae has created new guidelines for all lenders pointing to those who walk away from their foreclosure problems. Unless homeowners can prove extenuating circumstances, they will not be able to get another mortgage from Fannie Mae for at least five years. If the homeowner provides the required documentation, the moratorium is three years.

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Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson voiced a warning: ‘If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless.’ Today, approximately 7,000 families every day are losing out to the housing crisis by having their homes foreclosed. That is about 21,000 women, men, and children each and every day being forced out of their family homes. Their assets are gone, and most of the time their life savings. It will take these people many years to recover, if ever.

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Jingle mail is a phrase that is being used more frequently in this housing market crisis and one in which lenders fear and cringe. Jingle mail happens when a borrower gives up on the property mortgage, put the keys into an envelope, and sends them back to their lender. Then they pack up and walk away.

Why would homeowners do such a thing? Because borrowers overstretched their pocket books and can no longer keep up with rising prices and increased interest rates on those subprime loans. People are tired of stretching their hard-earned paychecks trying to keep up with a losing cause. Sending the keys back to the bank will force a foreclosure and ruin a credit score for at least seven years.

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The FBI most wanted list used to ask for help finding thugs, murderers, and others of that kind. Today, it could soon show some of the world’s wealthiest banks and mortgage lenders. Fourteen companies in the mortgage finance industry, along with some of the biggest banks in the world, are being investigated for accounting fraud, insider trading, and improperly securing loans during the sub-prime mortgage scandal.

Head of the FBI economic crimes unit, Neil Power, said that the probe would include those companies that securitized the mortgage loans as well as investment banks that bought those loans, and developers and sub-prime lenders.

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The mortgage calamity has dealt people like Jim Halbert a losing hand. Mr. Jim Halbert of Houston, Texas, lost his job as a mortgage underwriter for a now defunct Houston based Aegis because of the housing crisis. Now he is about to lose his home after spending all of his savings on house payments while he has been unemployed. That’s not the worst of it; Jim has recently been diagnosed with leukemia.

He did exactly what lenders tell borrowers facing foreclosure to do: Call the lender for help and work something out before the situation becomes hopeless. And his lender told him they couldn’t help because his payments were up to date. Thankful he had savings to make payments with; he has received a notice of default that he is now in danger of foreclosure. Since he has no job, he can’t make the payments. He’s not a good candidate for any of the programs available for folks facing foreclosure.

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