Outrageous and heartbreaking effect of mortgage crisis!

[grasswire]

I have just come from a meeting with a 21-year-old young man who is caught in a mortgage fraud. His story is stunning and, sadly, probably not unique in this turbulent time.

Mark (not his real name) was new in town last year. He gathered some other young people together to rent a house in October. They paid a $1500 deposit and first and last month's rent. The landlady did not check his credit, saying that nobody cared what it was -- too personal.

Mark and the roommates did not know that the house was already in foreclosure. But those notices from the bank kept coming to the house in the mail.

The landlady assured Mark that she was merely trying to get the loan recalculated and everything was fine. She said that she had the monies in a separate account, holding them, and would pay up the loan and there was no danger of losing the house.

Unfortunately, I had to tell Mark that this was a scam also perpetrated on the renters of other properties owned by this woman. I had to tell him that his home is, indeed, going to be sold on the steps of the courthouse in just under three weeks, and that he will lose his deposit and his last month's rent.

He came here from the very depressed state of Ohio. He has two years of college. He's working for minimum wage at a Safeway store. He's been victimized by shrewd and calculating people. He is very uninformed (as any young person would be) about what's happening to him. He kept shaking his head and saying "Now the bad parts of life are starting for me!"

And he's hungry. We were at a McDonald's. I offered to buy him a meal. I could tell he was hungry, but he declined my offer several times.

We're meeting again, and we're by god going to find a lawyer to help this kid pro bono.

I'm furious. The love of money is, indeed, the root of all evil. And I haven't told the worst of this story here.

How did I come to meet Mark? My family also rents from this woman, and our home is also in foreclosure with her pocketing seven months of our rent without paying the mortgage.