Being poor and without funds for medical care in the USA may be a familiar health trend. The big, bad bank won't evict the couple with the foreclosed home after all--until after a 55-year old unemployed public school roofer husband's quadriplegic and terminally-ill 59-year old wife, a former hospital nursing assistant, dies. Temporary rescue came because the media made the story public.
A Fair Oaks, Sacramento County couple are caught in a medical and financial crisis. See the December 18, 2011 Sacramento Bee article by Anita Creamer, "Terminally ill woman to stay in foreclosed home until she dies." The wife suffers from the last stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
She's perhaps dying too slowly for the bank's foreclosure regimen. She learned this past week that her last wish, to die in the modest Fair Oaks house where she and Luther have lived since 1996, will be possible because the bank now says she can die in her home.
The husband won't have much time to grieve though, before he has to leave his foreclosed home. The couple learned last week that the house that the wife and her husband have lived in since 1996 won't be foreclosed until she dies. Her illness has left her almost unable to speak, and soon it will rob her of her ability to swallow and also to breathe.
The woman worked all her life. This example is repeated throughout the nation. Her husband, a contractor, who often worked 12 hours a day, hasn't been able to find a job since the end of 2007. The couple also perhaps has been kicked off Medi-Cal coverage given to the poor and indigent because the income income limits required for the wife to keep her Medi-Cal coverage at no share of cost meant that her husband could not continue looking for another job.
The bank which has their mortgage, finally agreed this week not to evict the couple until after the wife dies. The point of this news story is that when you and your wife or parent lose all forms of employment and run out of money at the same time as the family has a medical crisis such as a terminal illness, you also face the stress of homelessness after foreclosure.
What can help this type of situation from repeating over throughout the country is the requirement that you have to be at--nearly indigent before you qualify for public support. Medical debt does more than bankrupt families. In fact 60 percent of bankruptcy filings since 2007 when the recession started, have been due to medical debt.
Add job loss and increasing foreclosure rates for the middle class to medical crisis such as an illness that's terminal, or becoming a quadriplegic in the days, weeks, or months before dying of a terminal illness are on the increase. The couple in question filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy five months ago.
The couple is at the brink of homelessness in the wife's final months of life. Who do you turn to or call? You can check out the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program — Legal.
Will this be your final months of life, becoming homeless and asking for help? And who will help you? If it weren't for reporters doing a news story on the couple, would the bank have relented if the couple just begged without seeking outside help? Did exposure to publicity in the mainstream media have anything to do with the bank letting the couple stay in the foreclosed home until the wife's imminent death?
The couple refinanced their house in 2006 for $234,000, according to the Sacramento Bee article. But the cost of medical treatment did them in. Just as the 2007 recession hit the economy, the wife was diagnosed with ALS, the progressive degenerative illness also known as Lou Gehrig's disease which is fatal. The disease destroys muscles and movement, speech, and breathing. Those with Lou Gehrig's disease eventually die as they gradually become paralyzed. First as quadriplegics, and then losing speech, finally losing the ability to breathe.
The couple's only income since the disease hit has been the $700 a month that the wife receives in Supplemental Security Income disability payments and the $1,100 the husband makes as her In-Home Supportive Services caregiver. And there was no way they could continue to pay their $1,500 per month mortgage. They haven't made a payment in almost four years.
Did the bank have a choice? But at least the bank has enough heart to wait until the wife dies before foreclosing on the husband. But did it take a newspaper article to expose the family's plight before the bank gave them an extension before eviction--until the death of the wife?
Let's say you get in this situation in California. First you apply for Medi-Cal to pay the medical bills. Then you're required to keep your total household income near poverty level. If you make over a specified amount or get money as a gift, your SSI and Medi-Cal ends. You're allowed to get a gift of total $20 or under. What will that pay for, perhaps a birthday cake? Certainly not a good pair of shoes.
And your SSI grant is your link to Medi-Cal. So if you lose your SSI grant, you lose your Medi-Cal coverage, and can't get health care unless someone volunteers to help you for free. You can call your church and ask volunteers to mow your lawn for free, for example, but how many friends are willing to help you if you get into this situation?
First the disease strips you from movement and speech, even breathing in the end...as if the disease mimicks how you're stripped of any income or savings. How can you afford someone to care for you?
Well, at least you get to die at home and not in a hospital all hooked up to tubes. On top of this disease, you're required to attend credit counseling sessions. Unbelievable. Finally your house is foreclosed and you get evicted. Your life is in the hands of strangers in a bank as to whether you get a break until you die.
At this point, the bank foreclosed on the couple last March and posted eviction notices on the couple's door. When the couple called from Sacramento county, they got on the phone with someone in India sometimes and other times someone in another state. All strangers, of course. Each person answering the phone told them something else, according to the Sacramento Bee article.
Ironically, as soon as reporters from the Sacramento Bee inquired of the bank, all of sudden, the bank put the eviction on hold until the wife dies. And they'll give the husband a little time to grieve before he must be evicted. That's the media for you. Until a reporter makes the plight public, you're treated like garbage.
Is this a right or a sense of entitlement? What's your opinion? As soon as the media intervenes to do a public story on the bank evicting a dying person, the scenario changes. It shows the public how easy it is to lose a house you've bought years ago if you can't pay your mortgage and/or your property taxes on a house.
Now the bank is putting the eviction on hold until the funeral is over and the husband has at least a little time to grieve. But how many people can tap the power of the press to make their story public and get the wolf at the door to take a sidestep toward compassion? Maybe the spirit of the winter holidays helped, but it took reporters and a daily newspaper to get the bank to have a heart.
The bank also appears to be trapped in its 'body' almost like a quadriplegic until a large daily newspaper with power, clout, and authority makes the story public by breaking news. At least the couple have some time to be at home in the final months. Power to the media. It's about the last recourse for the poor...where words and photos are worth more than a life to some at the other end. Power of speech or words does count because media reaches large numbers of readers or viewers.
A Fair Oaks, Sacramento County couple are caught in a medical and financial crisis. See the December 18, 2011 Sacramento Bee article by Anita Creamer, "Terminally ill woman to stay in foreclosed home until she dies." The wife suffers from the last stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
She's perhaps dying too slowly for the bank's foreclosure regimen. She learned this past week that her last wish, to die in the modest Fair Oaks house where she and Luther have lived since 1996, will be possible because the bank now says she can die in her home.
The husband won't have much time to grieve though, before he has to leave his foreclosed home. The couple learned last week that the house that the wife and her husband have lived in since 1996 won't be foreclosed until she dies. Her illness has left her almost unable to speak, and soon it will rob her of her ability to swallow and also to breathe.
The woman worked all her life. This example is repeated throughout the nation. Her husband, a contractor, who often worked 12 hours a day, hasn't been able to find a job since the end of 2007. The couple also perhaps has been kicked off Medi-Cal coverage given to the poor and indigent because the income income limits required for the wife to keep her Medi-Cal coverage at no share of cost meant that her husband could not continue looking for another job.
The bank which has their mortgage, finally agreed this week not to evict the couple until after the wife dies. The point of this news story is that when you and your wife or parent lose all forms of employment and run out of money at the same time as the family has a medical crisis such as a terminal illness, you also face the stress of homelessness after foreclosure.
What can help this type of situation from repeating over throughout the country is the requirement that you have to be at--nearly indigent before you qualify for public support. Medical debt does more than bankrupt families. In fact 60 percent of bankruptcy filings since 2007 when the recession started, have been due to medical debt.
Add job loss and increasing foreclosure rates for the middle class to medical crisis such as an illness that's terminal, or becoming a quadriplegic in the days, weeks, or months before dying of a terminal illness are on the increase. The couple in question filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy five months ago.
The couple is at the brink of homelessness in the wife's final months of life. Who do you turn to or call? You can check out the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program — Legal.
Will this be your final months of life, becoming homeless and asking for help? And who will help you? If it weren't for reporters doing a news story on the couple, would the bank have relented if the couple just begged without seeking outside help? Did exposure to publicity in the mainstream media have anything to do with the bank letting the couple stay in the foreclosed home until the wife's imminent death?
The couple refinanced their house in 2006 for $234,000, according to the Sacramento Bee article. But the cost of medical treatment did them in. Just as the 2007 recession hit the economy, the wife was diagnosed with ALS, the progressive degenerative illness also known as Lou Gehrig's disease which is fatal. The disease destroys muscles and movement, speech, and breathing. Those with Lou Gehrig's disease eventually die as they gradually become paralyzed. First as quadriplegics, and then losing speech, finally losing the ability to breathe.
The couple's only income since the disease hit has been the $700 a month that the wife receives in Supplemental Security Income disability payments and the $1,100 the husband makes as her In-Home Supportive Services caregiver. And there was no way they could continue to pay their $1,500 per month mortgage. They haven't made a payment in almost four years.
Did the bank have a choice? But at least the bank has enough heart to wait until the wife dies before foreclosing on the husband. But did it take a newspaper article to expose the family's plight before the bank gave them an extension before eviction--until the death of the wife?
Let's say you get in this situation in California. First you apply for Medi-Cal to pay the medical bills. Then you're required to keep your total household income near poverty level. If you make over a specified amount or get money as a gift, your SSI and Medi-Cal ends. You're allowed to get a gift of total $20 or under. What will that pay for, perhaps a birthday cake? Certainly not a good pair of shoes.
And your SSI grant is your link to Medi-Cal. So if you lose your SSI grant, you lose your Medi-Cal coverage, and can't get health care unless someone volunteers to help you for free. You can call your church and ask volunteers to mow your lawn for free, for example, but how many friends are willing to help you if you get into this situation?
First the disease strips you from movement and speech, even breathing in the end...as if the disease mimicks how you're stripped of any income or savings. How can you afford someone to care for you?
Well, at least you get to die at home and not in a hospital all hooked up to tubes. On top of this disease, you're required to attend credit counseling sessions. Unbelievable. Finally your house is foreclosed and you get evicted. Your life is in the hands of strangers in a bank as to whether you get a break until you die.
At this point, the bank foreclosed on the couple last March and posted eviction notices on the couple's door. When the couple called from Sacramento county, they got on the phone with someone in India sometimes and other times someone in another state. All strangers, of course. Each person answering the phone told them something else, according to the Sacramento Bee article.
Ironically, as soon as reporters from the Sacramento Bee inquired of the bank, all of sudden, the bank put the eviction on hold until the wife dies. And they'll give the husband a little time to grieve before he must be evicted. That's the media for you. Until a reporter makes the plight public, you're treated like garbage.
Is this a right or a sense of entitlement? What's your opinion? As soon as the media intervenes to do a public story on the bank evicting a dying person, the scenario changes. It shows the public how easy it is to lose a house you've bought years ago if you can't pay your mortgage and/or your property taxes on a house.
Now the bank is putting the eviction on hold until the funeral is over and the husband has at least a little time to grieve. But how many people can tap the power of the press to make their story public and get the wolf at the door to take a sidestep toward compassion? Maybe the spirit of the winter holidays helped, but it took reporters and a daily newspaper to get the bank to have a heart.
The bank also appears to be trapped in its 'body' almost like a quadriplegic until a large daily newspaper with power, clout, and authority makes the story public by breaking news. At least the couple have some time to be at home in the final months. Power to the media. It's about the last recourse for the poor...where words and photos are worth more than a life to some at the other end. Power of speech or words does count because media reaches large numbers of readers or viewers.
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