Doris Coates is the Author of this article and a valuable volunteer for the organization.

I have a success story to tell, in the midst of this unfolding drama called a Recession.  It’s a success in the changing of a few lives that were about to fall down the Rabbit Hole.  But first, let’s look at the size of the Rabbit Hole.
It would be hard to pinpoint the single most troubling aspect of this period, but foreclosures–mostly the result of unemployment-are probably having the most immediate impact on the most people.  Those who aren’t radically affected may not realize it, but to the six and a half million who have been told their job no longer exists or the more than two million who’ve been forced to leave their homes, this has the force and devastation of a tsunami or a tornado.  The images of Katrina’s aftermath come to mind.
Those numbers won’t stop there; they’ll keep growing for quite a while before this horror wears itself out.  Even with the moratorium on foreclosing, according to CNNMoney.com, there were a million and a half foreclosures in process just in the first two quarters of this year, a 15% increase over the same period last year.  As the moratorium is lifted, the numbers will swell even more.  And this isn’t just one and a half-or two and a half-million individuals in most cases; it is a multiple of those numbers, because there are so often children involved. Such a massive displacement of families is forever altering our landscape.  It is likely to prove comparable to the days of the Dustbowl.
Huge portions of the wealth of this country are going down the drain, as homes are taken from the people who’ve paid on them for 10, 20, even 30 years, and sold for a fraction of what would have been paid over the life of the loan, had the homeowner been allowed to get past this hump and start making payments again.
A home in foreclosure doesn’t just damage the people who lived there; property values around it are affected, tax revenue for schools decline, and too often the home is bought as an investment, to be rented out with little regard for the neighborhood; the result is a downward spiral wherever it happens.
But, I said I could tell a story of success in the midst of all this chaos and I can.  There are homes being saved here and there across the country by a little organization which didn’t even exist a year ago, and which still has no paid employees.  The Foreclosure Angel Foundation is saving homes and making the difference between disaster, defeat and trauma or a family able to stabilize and recover.

The foundation was born out of the compassion and alarm that grew from a chance encounter at a foreclosure auction.  Marilyn Mock had accompanied her son to an auction, intending to be a by-stander, but she encountered a weeping woman and stopped to talk to her.   Marilyn’s compassion and breezy, outgoing manner soon had Tracy Orr-a complete stranger-telling about the home she had lost. She said she had come to the auction to see who would buy it.

Marilyn doesn’t pass a serious need without figuring out if she can meet it; she isn’t rich, by any means, but she owns a small company and the company has a dump truck. Using her dump truck as collateral, Marilyn bought the house at a reduced price and Tracy is back at home, making affordable payments to her new best friend.

That act of generosity wasn’t out of the ordinary; it’s just the kind of thing that Marilyn does as she goes about her business, so she was stunned when suddenly there were cameras aimed at her and satellite trucks in her front yard.

For a little while she became the media darling, but that only scared her half to death; what she discovered in the process changed her life.  Her sudden exposure sent dozens, and then hundreds of people calling her, begging for help.  Learning the enormity of so many like Tracy overwhelmed and angered her; “Where are their neighbors?!” she yelled.

She formed the foundation and, with a few volunteers, set out to be a neighbor to as many as possible of the desperate people who came to the web site to apply for help.  They number over 10, 000 now.   There is no way to help them all, but one home at a time, she is
saving some.  For those she can reach, the world gets turned right-side up again.

As donations come in, they go right back out, paying the taxes to keep one out of foreclosure, settling with the mortgage company or the bank to save another, and another.  Where it isn’t possible to save a home, she and her volunteers are helping to relocate the family to suitable lodging.  The expense of those moves are often beyond the means of the evicted family, because landlords are requiring huge deposits after learning of the foreclosure; by the time they’ve given up the fight and started to move, the former homeowners have usually exhausted all their resources and need help.

We, who help with this effort, see a different world from the one shown on the nightly news.  We are like firefighters rushing to a burning building.  We see people screaming for help from the flames in the windows, some are already falling.  We are rushing to get hoses hooked to the water supply, moving ladders into place, and heading for the stairs to save as many as we can.  And we see the relief, after so much fear and utter exhaustion, as their lives become safe again.

So, I really did have a success story in the midst of what many in the housing industry are calling the Apocalypse.  It really is as bad as I began this account with, and the fight is uphill, but the more donations that are brought to bear-like the water filling the firemen’s hose-the fewer who will fall from those windows.

These families in crisis are a large part of our social fabric, and we need as many as possible to be able to stabilize and recover.  It is in our best interest to see that they can.  Our countrry is in crisis, but we can save it, one family at a time, or even better many at a time.  We need volunteers and funds, so bring your hammers, saws and nails, neighbors; we need to rebuild our neighbors’ barns.

Send your donations to:

Foreclosure Angel Foundation
P.O. Box 265
Rockwall, TX  75087

Or donate on the website at:

www.foreclosureangelfoundation.com