Woman, 90, Apparently Shoots Self During Foreclosure Eviction

[OhioChick]

POSTED: 2:20 pm EDT October 2, 2008
UPDATED: 4:16 pm EDT October 2, 2008

AKRON, Ohio -- A 90-year-old homeowner who was about to be foreclosed on shot herself when Summit County sheriff's deputies attempted to serve her with a foreclosure eviction, according to Summit County Sheriff's Department officials.

Officials said when the deputies knocked on the front door of the home located in the 1100 block of Lacroix Avenue they did not get an answer. They heard a banging noise coming from the second floor of the home.

A neighbor arrived and said he was concerned about the homeowner, so he got a ladder and entered the home through a second-floor bathroom window. She was found in her bedroom.

The homeowner likely shot herself.

Deputies said she was taken to an area hospital where she was admitted. It's unclear where she shot herself.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17608893/detail.html

A sad state of affairs for many U.S. citizens.

[Lars39]

1. ~

:cry: :(

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. The American Nightmare lives on :^(

[LiberalHeart]

3. Bailing out the bankers, evicting the elderly. Yikes.

[BanzaiBonnie]

4. Why is 90 year old

What in the heck is happening in this country? Are we China?

[VAliberal]

5. that is tragic

and it should serve as an illustration of how screwed our nation's economic and banking policies have become.

[hamsterjill]

6. This is so sad!

This just breaks my heart. The poor thing!

[Catherine Vincent]

7. Sad. :(

[Generic Other]

8. She'd lived through this kind of thing before

Tough enough to reach 90 and finally brought down by these crooked bums in office.

[peacetalksforall]

9. USSR, People's Republic, Kings men, USA in Iraq.

[Waiting For Everyman]

10. This is so wrong!

And real.

:cry:

[4 t 4]

13. I sent the station an email for more info........

I would like to try and help her, what if she doesn't have any family.

[OhioChick]

22. That was very kind of you.

:hug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Sadly we will continue to see this

but wait, those of us who worry about those folks are only interested in our investments :sarcasm:

[Winterblues]

18. What's your point?

Just being an a-hole on purpose.....Why the snide comment? Even with your little sarcasm thingy it seemed an uncalled for comment..

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. I can't mention names, that is against the rules

but a FEW DU'ers have made those charges when we have mentioned older relatives who are loosing their shirts and that we are worried about them

It is meant at them

But I cannot call them out

if they happen to read this... they may understand NOW why this matters

[Hydra]

40. Nadin, normally I agree with you about things

And because of that, I've been ignoring your push for the bailout, but I have to ask- what do you think the bailout will do for the people like this woman? How will giving Bushco another $700 billion to pocket possibly change what happened to this woman and all of the other people who died in the last 8 years because of these people, and all of the people who will die because of them?

Every real effort to help these people has been squashed by the Bush Admin with Dem help.

[Sydnie]

12. similar stories are everywhere

Remember, not that long ago a woman that shot herself to death because she had been hiding the foreclosure from her family. She shot herself in the house as they were coming to do the eviction so that her husband can save the house with her life insurance.

How crazy is all of this going to get before they stop?

[avaistheone1]

14. After 90 years as a citizen, a tax payer and member of her community in good standing,

how do you toss this old woman from her home?

Our country is f***** up.

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. It's unnecessary, there IS a way to fix this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4153479

Every foreclosure is heartbreaking. 10,000 every day. Why isn't this stopped? Why wasn't it done a year ago? What are they waiting for? How bad does it have to get before anyone cares enough to solve this right?

The bill they passed last summer through FHA, most can't qualify for, the rates are set too high. It doesn't go nearly far enough to be effective.

Geez, what do we need, a national holocaust before we stop and notice that this is unacceptable? Congress' attitude is like the stock market rationale, that it will sort itself out somehow. No, it won't! It's way beyond that. It needs to be stopped. Put a moratorium on it for 6 months, and fix it.

The bank lobbyists keep on getting their way, and people keep getting chewed up. Those lobbyists should not even be allowed to have one word of input in relief solutions - they were the problem, why are they getting a say in anything? They have been catered to enough. This whole crisis came about from letting them write our laws to begin with.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. A 90-year old woman with a mortgage? There's more to...

this story.

[Ms. Toad]

20. Likely predatory lending

Summit County is one of the worst counties in the country for predatory lending. A lot of predatory lenders convinced a lot of vulnerable people (including elderly) to refinance. Once they got into the predatory lending cycle, it snowballed into more and more loans that they were unable to pay. Sad thing is, she probably had equity in her home at one point and could have done a reverse mortgage to generate cash for her day to day expenses.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. Is there a dungeon dank enough...

for anyone who would do that.

I usually start by thinking about how you can't cheat an honest man, but then there's these boiler rooms proving you can cheat anyone if you try hard enough.

[Ms. Toad]

30. It was just an educated guess -

but I was right. The paper this morning says city leaders say "Polk has become Akron's 'poster child' for predatory lenders." Four years ago she took out a $45,620 mortgage on her $31,230 home from Countrywide Home Loan (one of the prominent players in predatory lending), in addition to an $11,380 line of credit.

Based on the value of her home, she could have gotten around $200 a month for as long as she lived in the home - or lump sum payments of $20,000 that she would never have had to pay back. It's not a lot, but it would be a lot better to have money coming in on a regular basis than having to be paid out.

[OhioChick]

23. My guess would be health care/meds

It's common practice now for the elderly to take out loans against their homes or to rack up credit card debt. Sad.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. Having dealt with a lot of elderly people in my family recently

I find that some seem to lose their street smarts, in the sense that they automatically trust everyone. When my grandmother lived with my parents, my mom had to intercept her mail and weed out the scams, because she would send money to anyone. Now my mother is getting to be a bit that way herself. We learned that my stepfather's financial advisor was churning their accounts and making himself a lot of commission, because he'd call my mom, say, "I think you should buy/sell this," and she'd say, "Whatever you think is best." We finally had to give her stern instructions not to authorize any transactions without consulting us.

I think there should be a special holding cell in hell for people who prey on the elderly.

[lib2DaBone]

38. Most likely had one of those "Reverse Mortgages" ....

Robert what's-his-name is always selling on TV. Or she sent all her money to some rip off Bible thumper on TV.

[glinda]

39. Yes. We are older and have a mortgage also.

We started later in life because of hard situations and we are paying on our house which now we may have lost all our equity in. It is a modest house also. Don't think that if someone is older that they have their house paid for. Don't ever think that.

[steve2470]

17. This is so sad and so horrible, further evidence why we need Obama nt

[SmokingJacket]

25. That's the saddest fucking thing I've ever read.

:cry:

[OhioChick]

26. Update to story:

"According to court records, four years ago, the homeowner took out a loan against her house.

The home was appraised at $28,000. As of last year, she owed more than $45,000 on the loan."

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17608893/detail.html

Wild guess.....medical/scripts.

[Ms. Toad]

32. Actually,

it sold at sheriff's auction for $28,000. It was appraised near the time of the loan for $31,230. http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/30240349.html (Still bad, and still predatory lending - her lender was one of the worst.)

She also took out a line of credit the same day she took out the loan for $11,380. The article doesn't say whether it was the same lender.

[2hip]

27. i'll be her in 6 mos

disabled, confined to bed in so much pain can't even roll over without assistance. no family or support network. 200K in equity but no more hard cash, nowhere to go. only one way out for me. at least the physical pain will end. don't know how to say goodbye to my dog. don't know why i'm even admitting this to strangers. consider it a commentary on the financial mess and a shitty health care system. i'm not the lone ranger, i'm sure. light a candle for us lost souls.

[progressoid]

28. We're not strangers.

We may only be connected by internet tubes but we're here for you. :hug:

Let's hope that an Obama White House will be able to make a difference for you and the rest of America.

[slipslidingaway]

29. Listening to Kucinich on the bailout bill, he says there is nothing

guaranteed for homeowners in this bill.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/vidLink.php?b=1222989523&e=1222991323&n=1

[MadHound]

31. There isn't a damn thing for homeowners

This is, despite the rhetoric, a bailout for the elite in this country. It doesn't address the underlying problems, it won't solve the underlying problems, it is simply going to throw more money at Wall St. so that the rich and well connected can recoup their losses while sticking Americans with the bill.

We want a better deal. Contact your Rep and tell them this, tell them to reject this travesty and come up with something that will help the regular person on Main St., not the elite on Wall St.

[OhioChick]

33. You're absolutely right.

What happened to this poor elderly woman is horrific.

[slipslidingaway]

35. Really sad and there will be no money left, Kucinich mentioned

her story this morning.

[orleans]

34. how sad. n/t

[malaise]

36. Too sad

:cry: :cry:

[Javaman]

37. I'm so happy our elected officials are helping people like this woman with the bailout...

do I really need to add the sarcasm emoticon?

[LiberalEsto]

41. Just wait till she gets the hospital bill

There is no mercy left in this nation for the poor, weak, and helpless.

The only welfare permitted is welfare for the rich (capital gains tax cuts) and the banks ($700 billion bailout). Heaven forbid a poor person needs something like a hot meal or a place to sleep.

[OhioChick]

42. Hospital bill with no money

and no home. That's criminal.

[ChromeFoundry]

43. bet this bailout to the wealthy wouldn't have affected her.

Heard this on my local news. Very sad.

[lenegal]

44. Why are the fuckers who lent to her not in jail?

The fuckers who took advantage of this ninety year old woman with their voodoo mortgages should be hung upside down by the nuts.

In God's name, why are these roadkill maggots not in jail?????

[kiva]

45. Someone at Fannie Mae may have had a bit of common decency...

Fannie Mae said it will set aside the loan of a woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home.
Fannie Mae foreclosed on the Akron, Ohio, home of Addie Polk, 90, after acquiring the mortgage in 2007.

Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her.

"We're going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house," Faith said. "Given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate."

Residents of Akron have rallied behind Polk, who is being treated at Akron General Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition Friday afternoon, according to Akron City Council

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

[OhioChick]

46. That's NOT decency when their offer came AFTER

She tried to kill herself. That's called "trying to save face."

[kiva]

47. Maybe as an institution, but there are real people working

at Fannie Mae, and I'd like to believe that some of them are as sickened as we are about her attempted suicide.