Faces of foreclosure

Lecia Eddy had good credit and a great job in safety compliance — and four years ago, she found herself fighting to keep a roof over her head.

Her finances were fine until her son in 2004 asked her to help him and his wife buy a home.

"They never made a payment," she said. "So 14 days before it foreclosed, I found out about that, and two days later, I also got downsized from my job." By the end of the year, she was looking at foreclosure, bankruptcy and no job — compounded by an adjustable-rate mortgage on her own home that was scheduled to reset to a higher rate in two years.

"It started going up, going up, going up, and I was seriously looking at losing my home," she said. "I take care of my elderly mom, and I was just freaked out."

After her son's home was lost to foreclosure, Eddy got in touch with NeighborWorks Salt Lake, a nonprofit housing counseling agency that helped save her home by negotiating with her lender on her behalf.

Eddy said she now has an adjustable-rate mortgage that is fixed for the next five years at 5 percent. She said that five years would give her time to re-establish her credit and eventually refinance her home loan to a more manageable fixed rate.

"Prior to this, I always figured that people who got into foreclosure did it to themselves," she said.

Now, she has a different, more understanding perspective and has since directed three other people in similar circumstances to NeighborWorks for assistance.

As the nation copes with the worst housing market in recent memory, thousands of people in Utah and nationwide are trying to avoid losing their homes. The foreclosure rise has struck people from across the social strata, including famed pitchman and television host Ed McMahon, who recently disclosed that his multimillion-dollar mansion is in foreclosure. They include people who are at risk of losing their primary residence, as well as builders and others who sought to profit from the housing boom and are having difficulty selling those homes now.

"We have a lot of middle and upper class that just bought way more house than they could really afford, or they got into a bad loan or they had credit issues, as well," said Stephanie Hanson, a housing counselor and education coordinator with Community Development Corporation of Utah, a nonprofit housing-counseling agency that provides help to people facing foreclosure.

"We've also had a lot of clients who really shouldn't have gotten the mortgage in the first place," she added. "They weren't credit worthy, and so they got into an adjustable rate, and they were delinquent before their rate ever adjusts due to their poor money management or an unforeseen job loss, illness or increased expenses."

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