New York, NY —
The emotional ties a family feels to a home are especially apparent now - when hundreds-of-thousands are having to leave houses they can no longer afford. A foreclosure is devastating for a family whether they'd been there for decades or just a few years. This is especially true for poor families who have few resources and don’t know where else to go. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez visited one of these families in Jamaica, Queens.
REPORTER: High rise apartment buildings are not the norm in Jamaica, Queens instead modest single family homes fill block after block.
For now, one of these homes belongs to Bebi Wazadally. The 38-year-old has four children. All of them girls. The oldest is 11 and the youngest is still a baby.
WAZADALLY: And you CC and this is Cyeanna and I’m one year old, C-y-e-a-n-n-a. (baby starts to cry)
REPORTER: She offers a quick tour of her home with the girls trailing behind. The kitchen is a good size but it’s old and needs a few repairs. Outside, the backyard is just a sliver of space. Upstairs are the bedrooms. The three girls share one room. They all sleep in the same bed. Wazadally’s father is resting in another room. The 84-year-old has Alzheimer’s and his daughter pokes her head in to check on him.
WAZADALLY: Are you ok? Huh? Daddy, you want something?
REPORTER: Wazadally says she bought this home for $550,000 in 2006. It’s worth much less today. She says she was given a mortgage for the full price and it was based on her income of just over $22,000 – poverty wages for a family her size.
WAZADALLY: I jumped at the opportunity because I didn’t have to put anything down and then I was gonna get a place for my kids to have their own room. My mom and dad could come with me and it wasn’t something that I thought ahead that it’s gonna be too much or whatever.
REPORTER: Wazadally thought she was getting a good deal. Prior to buying the home, she and her kids had been living with a sister nearby – all of them shared one room and she was eager to get out of the cramped quarters. In this house, her monthly mortgage payment is about $5,000. Wazadally cobbled it together for nine months with help from her mother who receives disability and her sister. But then she could no longer pay.
WAZADALLY: So when I went to reach a legal aid this is when I’m finding out that the foreclosure had started way when and now they are trying to sit down with me to see what’s going to happen. I don’t know how it’s going to be …how I can help in anyway because I just lost my job so I have no income right now.
REPORTER: Wazadally says she worries most about her elderly parents, especially her father who needs a nurse and a home attendant. While his illness keeps him from understanding the dire situation, his wife, 78-year-old Caramwatti Wazadally is acutely aware of what’s going on. She came to the United States from Guyana about 20 years ago. She says she was happy when the family moved in and she and her husband were given two rooms upstairs
CARAMWATTI: And now I take it so much that I have to go hospital after they all got me worried here. Where we gonna go. We can’t go nowhere. Very depressed on us.
REPORTER: A tear streams down her face as she talks. Her daughter says the only place that she could afford that’s big enough for the whole family is in public housing. She has an application but hasn’t finished filling it out yet.
REPORTER: About a ten minute drive away are the offices of legal aid. This is where Wazadally first came to get help. April Newbauer and two other attorneys do their best to deal with a flood of families facing foreclosure.
NEWBAUER: This is October 29’s load that has to be inputted into a computer.
REPORTER: All these applications are from families who need help. Some have stories similar to Wazadally’s. Newbauer says while it should be shocking that a person making just over $20,000 could get a half a million dollar loan, it’s not anymore.
NEWBAUER: In the last couple of years there were of course no doc loans, no income verification loans, and brokers out in the field who were…trying to make as many loans as quickly as possible and unfortunately a lot of unsophisticated borrowers relied on them as real estate professionals to tell them whether they could afford a particular house.
REPORTER: Newbauer says poor people were specifically marketed too, especially in minority neighborhoods such as Jamaica, Queens. She says so far the only thing her staff hasn’t seen yet is someone on welfare with a home loan. Though there was one person who got a loan with no other income except a monthly disability check. This tall slim attorney, dressed in a purple suit says many of these families are also in credit card debt and behind on their taxes.
REPORTER: Bebi Wazadally is still not ready to fully accept that she may have to move soon. Outside her home Wazadally and her daughter admire a white wire reindeer and snowman.
WAZADALLY/KIDS: They turn it on for you. (laughter) How did it turn on? Somebody turn it on. Those are Christmas tress and reindeer. Oh they move. Yes. I’m going to see the otherside.
REPORTER: Wazadally says it has crossed her mind that this could be the last time she decorates this house.
WAZADALLY: That’s why I really did the decoration…for the kids to at least have a good Christmas.
REPORTER: She will know more in a few days when she meets with her lender’s attorney.
REPORTER: Wazadally has packed nothing and she says she still has not told her daughters exactly what’s going on though she acknowledges they must have some idea from over hearing her conversations. For now, they are content sliding around the wood floors in their white socks, playing with each other.
(sound of girls singing and playing)
REPORTER: The 38-year-old understands she has many people depending on her right now but she just wants to enjoy what she has even if it might be ending soon. She is partly embarrassed, partly ashamed, but says she’s not angry at anyone because at least she got to live this way - for a little while. For WNYC, I’m Cindy Rodriguez.