Senior Living - Senior Messenger’s Guide to housing resource center helps seniors keep homes
Six days before Christmas, Karen nearly lost her home.
Karen is one of the hundreds of Vancouver seniors for whom the much discussed foreclosure crisis is more than a set of statistics. Like many, she’d been forced to keep working to make ends meet. When she lost her job as a software engineer, she couldn’t afford to retire.
After looking for work unsuccessfully, she went back to school and got her Masters in project management. It was a rewarding experience, but she still couldn’t find a job and unemployment was beginning its ascent toward historic levels. Finally, she signed up for job placement and training assistance through Partners in Careers’ Senior Employment Program. Her first assignment wasn’t a good fit. Her second was with the Community Housing Resource Center (CHRC).
Karen had actually been to the center a few months prior for help with her mortgage. A counselor helped Karen to secure a trial modification that lowered her monthly payment.
In 2009, the center served 1,200 individuals and families in its Mortgage Default Prevention program. Like Karen, the majority had lost their jobs and were having trouble finding new ones.
The modification helped, but permanent, full-time employment was still difficult to find, and her loan eventually went back into default. What’s more, her credit cards were now maxed out and she was getting calls from creditors almost every day.
One day at work, Karen’s financial counselor suggested she consider a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages allow seniors to take out a loan against the equity they have accrued over a lifetime. The loan doesn’t have to be repaid until the house is sold or refinanced and it can be a means to hold on to a home filled with a lifetime of memories.
Karen met with the center’s reverse mortgage counselor and contacted a lender. The holidays were fast approaching, but the foreclosure process hadn’t slowed down. On the verge of losing her home at auction, she secured a reverse mortgage loan that stopped the foreclosure proceedings.
Karen still lives in her home. Last month, she had her taxes prepared at the Center by AARP-Tax Aide. For the second year in a row, the center partnered with AARP-Tax Aide and the United Way of the Columbia-Willamette to increase awareness of the earned income tax credit and the free preparation services that AARP-Tax Aide provides. With her refund this year, Karen will be able to afford some of the necessities she’s had to put off for so long.
Individuals experiencing trouble making their mortgage payment can attend mortgage default prevention class (the same class that helped Karen) every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 p.m. at the Center, located at 2700 N.E. Andresen Rd., Suite D3, in Vancouver.
To talk with a HUD certified Reverse Mortgage Counselor, call Kevin Gillette at 360-690-4496 ext. 101.
For more information, go to www.homecen.org.
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