Awash with waves of faulty loans and “For Sale” signs stuck so long into front yards they’ve grown moldy, American homeowners grit their teeth and hope that another outlay of magic money—this time $275 billion—will really and truly help up to 9 million people.
After eight years of indifference, over the last couple of days the quick thinkers in the Obama Administration came up with this four point plan:
1. They will remove some restrictions so people can refinance and prevent foreclosure. (Yahoo! Help’s on its way for 5 million homeowners.)
2. Mortgage lenders are offered a sweet deal to modify some loans so monthly payments can be lowered. (Yahoo again. Help for another 4 million homeowners)
3. The Treasury department will buy back some mortgage-backed securities, pumping about $200 billion into the housing markets, to keep mortgages low so people, who have in good faith tried to pay their monthly bills, can stay in their homes. (This is the part that causes the anti-Fannie and Freddie people to gnash their teeth and even sometimes froth at the mouth. And actually begin to look like Ann Coulter.)
4. Obama and company will try to change bankruptcy rules so judges can bring the payments down to where they really should be before all that funny-money started floating around and clogging up our banking system. (Sounds like a reasonable plan.)
But there should be a 5th. We could call it the “Homestead Steady as She Goes” Act.
My grandfather, Hans, was two and a half when his mom and dad left Lund, Norway in 1874. Once they lost him on the ship and found him asleep rolled up in a sail. After that he was tethered.
Six weeks later, they landed and, thanks to a friend, found their way to Wisconsin where his father worked as a flour miller and log cutter. One day he met a homesteader from the Sand Creek area who said, “Hey, Grover Cleveland has made it possible for you to get 80 acres if you just build a house and a log barn on it.” Long story short, they did.
I have a copy, albeit pretty faded, of the document signed by Number 22 himself on the 30th day of March, 1886.
The Norwegian word, stadr, means place.
I spent many summers and most weekends on that homestadr. My family place. And I actually lived there full time during my junior high years, helping to care for my aging grandfather and my unmarried farming uncle after my grandmother died. That farm, thanks to the government, was a steady place to be, filled with healthy food, loving people, and great stories.
So, the 5th part of Our Homesteady Housing Plan would ensure that people living in those saved homes be loved, fed properly and nurtured with hopeful stories. I’m not sure how that could actually happen, but perhaps you have some ideas.
And more importantly people evicted from their homes are shown a way to survive so that one day they can show their grandchildren a copy of a document signed by their president that says:
You are needed here. You are valued. It will take some hard work, but you can do it.
And we’ll help you.
Wonderful, just wonderful!
Posted by: Liz Cornell | August 25, 2009 at 12:49 PM