I get so tired of hearing right wingers say that people in foreclosure should loose their homes because they “got in over their heads”. It’s a typical right wing ploy of “blaming the victim”. A couple week ago I posted about our soldiers facing foreclosure, simply because they had the audacity to go and fight in a war. How dare they!. Now here is another look at what could cause a person to lose their home:

When Patricia Waelti walks through the back yard of her old two-story home on Mitchell Road in Wilmington, she sees the face of her late husband Terry.

“This is our home,” Waelti said. “This is where we were going to grow old together.”

Foreclosure is tearing apart more lives than ever before, as the economic crisis becomes more widespread and far reaching than many imagined.

Waelti’s Clinton County home is one of 1,600 foreclosed properties across the Tri-State.

She said when the money from her husband’s life insurance policy started to run out, she started falling behind on her mortgage payments.

Waelti said she asked the bank to renegotiate but they refused and eventually foreclosed.

In February, her home was auctioned off at a Sheriff sale at the Clinton County Courthouse.

These people didn’t get in over their heads. They didn’t try to play “keep up with the Jones’”. No – they just went out and bought a house that they could afford. Then tragedy hit, and instead of the bank trying to work with the widow, they ignored her. But it gets better (worse):

The same bank that ended up foreclosing on Waelti’s home also ended up buying it back for $60,000 less than the appraised value.

Now what is the bank going to do with this house? Well either they will rent it or they will resell it closer to the appraised value.

These actions should be criminal, but if you ask the right then the criminal would be the homeowner. The bank can’t afford to renegotiate with a client who had a horrible tragedy hit, but they sure can profit off her misfortune? That is nothing but sick, and this bank should be the one gone after. I wonder if they have received any TARP money?