My family is the 99%

I have lots of thoughts to share about Occupy Wall Street, money, class and so on - and I hope to share those thoughts soon.

Today I'm going to direct you to something I wrote in April that you might not have read - it's the story of a crisis my family went through a few years ago.

You know, many people wouldn't look at me or my family and think we'd be the types to go through a crisis of that type - we're too educated, too well-dressed, too smart, too well-paid. Well, we did go through it and there are thousands of families, including families who are even better off than we are, who are going through things like this.

Was our situation the fault of Wall Street? Directly, maybe not. Did Wall Street contribute to the real estate situation where people bought investment properties they couldn't really afford? Yes. Did an incredible number of property owners go into foreclosure because their payments weren't realistic? Yes. Did every day people like my family get the short end of the stick when it came to renting a property that turned out to be foreclosed? OH YES. Why, my family is going through that very same thing right now - we have to move by the end of December - except this time there's no dramatic flooding. There have been so many renters being turned out of now-foreclosed properties that a new law was created in 2009 to protect them . . . and still we weren't protected. There are still hardworking families having to scramble for a new place to live because their landlord went into foreclosure.

I suppose we should "just" buy a house, already, right?