.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} tr.d0 td { background-color: #ccccff; color: black; }
Local business leaders like to say that Central Iowa is fairly safe from the financial storm lashing the nation, but some people see the situation differently. Every day, several of them place phone calls to Jerri Scott, telling her they’re about to lose their homes.

“People call in panic,” said Scott, who does counseling and teaches classes for Des Moines Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI). “They’re two months behind, and they think it’s hopeless.”

The nice part of Scott’s job comes when she can calm people who expect to be homeless in a few days, give them hope and get them organized.

“I try to make them understand that they have a lot of hard work to do, but they have time,” she said. When she offers that relief, “a lot of people cry.”

CCI is hearing from more and more people about foreclosure and house payment problems these days, and the organization tries to steer them into little coves of stability. First, CCI has to find the coves.

“There’s a lack of counselors and a lack of entities to work with people and help them stay in their homes,” said Danny Wagener, a CCI community organizer.

Wagener said CCI workers recently met with US Bank and Bank of America and asked: “Whom do we talk to when people need help?” The organization met with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage two or three years ago, Wagener said, “but they weren’t serious about working with us. We would love to sit down with them again.”

CCI members also hope to talk to Gov. Chet Culver this week. “We’ve been trying to meet with him since August,” said Brenda LaBlanc, who has been a CCI member for 30 years. The group has a “lobby day” scheduled for Tuesday at the Statehouse and hopes to get some attention from legislators that way.

And they have plans to meet with Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut in Washington, D.C., in April. What about Iowa’s senators? “They’ve never been any use to us,” said LaBlanc, who joined the housing wars back when the battle was about redlining by lenders.

Wagener recently traveled to Florida to meet with representatives of Ocwen Financial Corp. “We have helped 60 or 70 Ocwen borrowers in Iowa in the last year and a half,” he said. The company is proactive, Wagener said, and “a lot of times the borrower gets a forbearance.”

With that breathing room, a borrower in trouble has a decent chance of turning things around. Unfortunately, many lenders don’t show much interest in the concept of breathing room.

“My experience is that the first people who contact homeowners are collections people,” Scott said. “They say they’re customer service, but the mentality seems to be collections. If they had a customer service person talking to homeowners first, they might actually work out more recovery plans.”

Scott counsels 150 to 250 people a year one-on-one. Combine those people with those who take money management and home ownership classes, and Scott figures she worked with more than 600 people last year.

She knows there are people who show up on a foreclosure list because they’re trying to live in a house for free as long as possible. “But I would estimate that 90 percent of the people I talk to really want to try to keep their house,” she said.

She also knows that predatory lending is alive and well and contributing greatly to the mess.

For example, she refers to 2/28 loans as “a deliberate setup” marketed by “slimebags.”

A 2/28 loan starts with a high interest rate for two years, includes a prepayment penalty throughout those two years, then adjusts every six months for the next 28 years, Scott said.

“Typically, if you read the fine print, which I do, the interest rate will never go lower than the original rate,” she said. “We’re also seeing a balloon payment as the final, 360th payment. Folks don’t even know that’s there.”

There’s a whole world of people who didn’t understand what they were signing or bought too much house or just didn’t anticipate the next calamity. It’s easy to forget about them if you’re surrounded by sharp people who know how the game is played.

If you work with the folks on the second team, though, the game seems pretty close to being rigged.