Mortgage Crisis Suicide? Wife and Mother on Verge of Losing Home Kills Herself

For many months I have been reporting on the surge in suicides among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Now another grim phenomenon is rearing its head: the suicide of homeowners who have lost their homes during the mortgage crisis.

Police in Taunton, Mass., report today that Carlene Balderrama, 53, a wife and mother, shot herself to death Tuesday afternoon -- 90 minutes before her foreclosed home was scheduled to be sold at auction. Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., saying that "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."

The Boston Globe reports today: "The mortgage company notified police, who found her body at 3:30 p.m. The auction had been scheduled to start at 5 p.m., when bidders showed up at the house and found it surrounded by police cruisers. But, unbeknownst to buyers and to Balderrama, the auction had been postponed by the time she grabbed her husband's high-powered rifle, [Police Chief]O'Berg said."

Balderrama left a note for her family, saying they should "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house," O'Berg said. The chief said he did not know, however, if the family would be able to collect on the policy in the event of a suicide.

Neighbors on Duffy Drive, a forested side street on the city's east side, said Balderrama had lived in the two-story, brown-shingled, raised ranch for about four years with her husband, John, who is a plumber, and their 24-year-old son, who works in a restaurant.

Joe Whitney, who works with Balderrama's husband, said that she handled the bills in the household and that the husband was unaware of the foreclosure (although his money problems went back a few years)..

"John didn't even know about it; that's the surprise," Whitney said outside the home, where he had come to comfort the family. "It's just one of those awful, awful, tragic events."

The Globe concludes: "As Congress rushed yesterday to help 400,000 strapped homeowners avoid foreclosure and prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing, the suicide underscored the potentially devastating toll of the housing crunch." However, evidence has emerged that this particular case is complicated and the couple had a long history of financial trouble.

O'Berg told the paper he was troubled that the pressures of foreclosure had triggered suicide on a street that he described as solidly middle-class: "That's the real sad part: This is a middle-class family, a husband working, the son is working," O'Berg said. But the housing crunch, he said, "is inflicting real pain on middle-class Americans."

Boston NPR station WMUR did a report, including interviews with local realtors. One said, when asked if this suicide surprised him: "To be honest with you, no."

Another realtor said: "One of the biggest things that hits everybody, is the cost of gasoline and oil. The president ended up giving everybody a 300, or 600, or 1200 dollar check. That helps them out for, a week?" He then disclosed that he was worried that he wouldn't be able to pay his own mortgage next month.
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Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. He is editor of Editor & Publisher.

Comments

[johnie2xs]

The "Bush" legacy should be;
1) The name of "Bush" should supplant the name of Dr. Samuel Mudd to denote
worthless, as in; "Your name is Bush"
2) Bathrooms should be hereafter reffered to as "The George".
3) Consecrate a new military cemetery on Bush's Crawford Texas Ranch.
4) An Anti-Bush Amendment to be added to the Constitution, whereby if
any other President should disregard the health of the "Middle Class"
to the degree Bush has, be subject to a capital punishment.
5) Impeach the bastard and send him off to the Hague.

AGREED????????????

[VOTER]

ENDANGERED SPECIES: AMERICA'S MIDDLE CLASS - Part of the Bush Legacy

Question: How many other desperate MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS have
committed suicide for financial reasons (job loss, loss of homes, lack of healthcare, etc.) but their deaths haven't made the news?

[several]

Suicide isn't caused by difficulties in life. Suicide is caused by untreated depression.

[Jasel]

Suicide can be caused by untreated depression but it can also be caused by difficulties in life as well. This woman obviously thought the only way out of this mess was to kill herself so her family could collect enough money to not lose their home.

[several]

People lose everything and live on the streets without killing themselves. People lose their entire families to accidents, war, famine etc and go on to life out their own lives without killing themselves. Without physiological depression, humans are by default incredibly resilient creatures.

Difficulties in life alone don't lead to suicide. Physiological depression cuts off the will-to-live, which we're all normally instilled with. That in combo with life difficulties can lead to suicide, but not difficulties and tragedies under a normal serotonin balance. A proper balance of serotonin in the brain can get you through anything.

[VOTER]

Dr. Several

Can you write the prescriptions needed for the millions of desperate MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS?

Just asking...............

[FogBelter]

Mr Mitchell, I don't know the particulars of Mrs. Balderrama's plight but I can say this ... the mortgage games that have been played in the US for the last decade and a half have been so crooked as to qualify as a Bunko Scam. Even before the subprime mess I heard stories of real estate agents, in cahoots with mortgage brokers, moving large sums of money into the potential buyer's bank accounts in order for them to qualify for the loan ... the money removed after the loan was approved. In so far as the sub prime and liar loan mess ... lets' be straight here, the goal was not to get people into homes, the goal was to get mortgages that could be securitized and then moved into the credit market. That was the purpose of the whole phenomena that led to the current mortgage collapse.

And in order to get these CMOs to market, the realtors, appraisers, mortgage brokers, banks, and Federal Government used the dream of home ownership as a weapon against those who crave the American Dream.

So, Mrs Balderrama wasn't a victim of poor money management ... she was the victim of a coordinated crime against millions of American consumers.

[aofh]

"lets' be straight here, the goal was not to get people into homes, the goal was to get mortgages that could be securitized and then moved into the credit market."

This rings true to me. I would be willing to bet that the acceleration in housing prices was driven by what the lenders were willing to lend, and what they were willing to lend was tied less and less to their liquidity. The sad truth is that the middle-class has been stagnant, if not declining, since the 70s.

[hipockets]

This is a very sad story. What appears to be even more disturbing is that this woman couldn't or didn't tell her husband of the pending foreclosure. We don't know what kind of family dynamics prevailed here...however, it is always sad to know that a person would take their own life over losing a house....

[mairs]

A friend of mine is behind on his Wachovia adjustable mortgage. He asked the cold, impersonal young girl on the phone how high they can raise the interest rate on his loan. She said, Oh it can go up to 11%. (It's at 9% now and climbing every year.) I have an idea Wachovia, since you're in deep doo-doo right now, why not stop raising your adjustable interest rates, then people can stay in their homes, then you won't go bankrupt foreclosing on 11% loans? How's that for an idea?

[Pupadup4oBama]

Mairs, you must be joking - that would make too much sense (or cents - whichever you prefer).

Sad story - but I'm sure much more common than we'd like to admit.
I hope Bush and his cronies are happy now.

[RightWingMarine]

Why is it Wachovia's fault that your friend can't make the payment or that he accepted an adjustable rate mortgage, or that he didn't know before he signed the contract how high it could go? Did Wachovia lie to your friend? Did they not permit him to see the contract even as he signed it? If so then he might have a pretty good arguement why he should be let out of the contract. If he simply didn't understand what was written into the contract that is his fault. If Wachovia gave answers that were vague or difficult to follow then your friend should have backed out then or gone to an attorney and had them explain the contract.

Banks loan money to people with the written understanding that the money will be repaid with interest. The terms of this interest are spelled out and if it is a ARM loan then the conditions for the rate changing and when that will occur are spelled out. If someone lies to get a larger loan than they can afford or doesn't bother to read the contract for the thousands of dollars they are borrowing that is their own fault and they should not expect the bank or the government (i.e. my tax dollars) to make it all better for them.

[aofh]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like the friend mentioned here. I agree that the borrower has responsibility in this mess, but so does the lender. If the lender's practices are predatory, then he must be especially careful that what he catches doesn't fail because too many failures will cause him to fail, too. What we are seeing is that lenders became cavalier in their practices, and now they and their victims/customers are suffering.

[ndolomar]

I heard a teaser for this on the radio news while driving to work yesterday, but never heard the actual story. Thank you for posting -- quite sad, but I wanted to know.

[kissmygrits]

One more reason the de-regulators being part of the republicans prove they aren't for family values.