In the time it takes to read this viewpoint, another American family will lose its home. Not since the Great Depression have so many of our people been driven from their homes.
As tough as it is now it was much worse last November. President Barack Obama and his economic team moved quickly to put the brakes on foreclosures and slow down ravenous banks, which played a major role in starting this collapse.
Obama said it may take many years to repair the damage and set the economy back on a good footing. Sadly, he is probably right.
During this past year many San Diegans have tumbled from the middle class and a financially secure life. They have lost jobs, homes and often their sense of self.
Lashawnda French, 32, a former Southwestern College student, lost her home to the unstable economy back in 2006. An independent business owner and mother, she was a student majoring in vocal music, acting and entertainment when her life took an unexpected turn for the worst. Her husband lost his job and she was forced to sell her salon, leave her education and finally forced to leave the place she called home. French remains unemployed.
Adults with college degrees and excellent job experience have found themselves working at Walmart, McDonalds and Starbucks. These men and women have bills to pay and mouths to feed. They worry every day whether or not they are going to make it, worrying how they are going to continue to provide for their families in one of the darkest financial periods in current history.
Education has always been America's golden key to a better life. Gaining the knowledge to obtain a well-respected job, pay for a nice home and a comfortable lifestyle used to be the hopes of many Americans. Now in California, that is not even a certainty.
Due to the lack of classes and educational resources at Southwestern College people like French who have lost their homes, and are struggling between making ends meet and paying the additional six dollars for classes probably won't choose the latter.
Our once-great university systems and community colleges used to be affordable sanctuaries of higher education. They were places where people could be certain that their time and efforts would matter. No more. Those dreams are being chopped, cut, remodeled and reduced like foreclosed homes.
Society as a whole has entered a kind of survivalist mode that is both heart wrenching and sickening. The concept that one generation helps the next has been snuffed out by the me-first efforts of Proposition 13, which has drained the glitter from the Golden State.
While foreclosure signs litter lawns to homes once populated with productive citizens and secure families, the neighborhoods around SWC are pockmarked with despair.
Lifestyles are being impacted. Inside homes families are making adjustments while the economy is at a standstill.
California has begun to realize that callously evicting homeowners is unethical and has developed new requirements under Senate Bill 1137 "California's Foreclosure Reform Law," requiring lenders to contact homeowners who are struggling 30 days prior to giving them a notice of default.
Is 30 days really enough time to walk away from a lifetime of memories?
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