King Sized Life For The Foreclosed Homeless

Posted in Foreclosure, September 17th, 2008 |

For those made homeless by foreclosures in the swank localities, life is not as tough as it is for others in the same soup elsewhere.

America is now reeling under the foreclosure crisis. The sub-prime mortgages enticed people to take loans with teaser rates but when these increased the borrowers could no longer pull along with mortgage repayments with their levels of income. This led to innumerable foreclosures. The staggering number of foreclosures has led to a housing crisis of jumbo proportions. The issue has been complicated with the drop in the real estate market. This made the value of the houses become worth less than the loan amount. So borrowers have neither the capacity nor the incentive to continue with paying mortgage for a worthless house. This has led to thousands of evictions from foreclosed houses. The people have become shelter less.

Meanwhile foreclosures are continuing and now engulfing sophisticated regions. Here the fate of the homeless is not quite so bad as their peers in other regions. Beverly Hill is a nice place to become homeless. In this well manicured locality consisting of 35,000 residents. Here it is a common sight to see Rolls Royce and Lamborghinis slide along noiselessly. The stars of the move world live in gated palaces while tourists’ gape and gasp.

But that is only one side of the show. Here too foreclosures have been sneaking in. In Beverly Hills there are about 30 grubby residents who find shelter in parks, subways and alleys. They are mostly foreclosure victims. The contrast with them and the glitter of Beverley Hills is a story in stark contrast. In Los Angeles County about 74,000 people are roughing it out in the streets. Los Angeles can be dubbed the homeless capital of USA.

John Joel Roberts of Path Partners, a group involved with providing help to the street residents, commented that “homelessness is just all over, even Beverly Hills.” But here the hapless are happy to get handouts from the generous rich. The rich and famous turn up in Porches and SUV offering food trays, designer clothes in laundry packs and also odd jobs. Some hand out $2,000 with bottles of excellent wine and Gucci shoes. There are even empty houses to walk in on tiptoes. A grizzly unshaven man carted suitcases, office chair and a stroller piled with stuff found from the dumpster. He grinned and said his name was ‘Bond’!