A 71-year-old woman could be getting a most unwanted gift on Mother's Day.
California mom Sheri Prizant faces the possibility of being evicted from her home of 35 years at on Sunday, MSNBC reports. Prizant alleges that she and her late husband were duped into a bad loan, and that they couldn’t keep up with the $5,000 per month payments alongside his medical bills and their fixed income.
"I want to cry," Prizant told MSNBC. "My whole life has really been in this house."
Though seniors have long been targets of mortgage fraud and other deception, the housing crisis further exacerbated the problem. In 2008 and 2009, the Senior Legal Hotline -- a service in California that aims to help seniors deal with foreclosure -- received 600 calls from elderly homeowners seeking mortgage help, many more than in previous years, according to KPBS.org.
The financial struggles of the elderly will like remain a national problem for some time. That's because roughly half of all Americans today are not at all saving for retirement, according to a recent survey.
Even living in a retirement community isn't enough to protect seniors from eviction woes. Sometimes, the senior living center itself can face foreclosure. Bankruptcy at upscale retirement communities in California also saw a boost in 2009, the Los Angeles Times reports. In some cases, that sent seniors, who invested their retirement savings into living at the homes, out onto the street. In other cases, it boosted their dues.
Seniors being victimized by foreclosure isn't a phenomenon limited to California either. Occupy protesters showed up in an aim to stop police from evicting a 62 year-old Atlanta woman and her 83 year-old mother at 3 a.m. earlier this month, WSB-TV reports. The residents and activists alleged that the home was wrongly foreclosed on in October and they've fighting the foreclosure in court.
In Ireland, an elderly couple was kicked out of their mansion last month, the Irish Independent reports. The husband and wife, who are 71 and 63, respectively, claimed that the eviction left them homeless and vowed to camp outside their house until they were let back in.
Sometimes, a public outcry can boost the elderly homeowner's chances of keep their home. That's what happened to 101-year-old Texana Hollis, who, after a campaign by journalists, businesses and volunteers, was allowed to return to the home from which she had been evicted.
Check out some more foreclosure fails below:
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