Frosty Roofs - Empty Homes

When I took the dog for his morning ritual walk early this morning I was greeted with my first taste of winter - complete with frost. Although the frost was on the grass and car windows, my attention was drawn to the frost on the roofs of houses along the street. In the stillness of the morning each roof took on a similar appearance and made me feel that much colder. When I entered the house after the walk, I was met with a warm blast of air from the heater. It felt good to be in out of the cold - warm, dry and safe. Then it occurred to me that the warm air and the roof over my head were comforts that I rarely thought about and took for granted.

How did out ancestors survive brutal winter weather? Prehistoric man made it without heat or much in the way of clothing. The American Indians lived through cold winters by making use of the resources around them to stay warm and eat - wild life, skins and ingenuity helped them survive. They took what they had and appreciated it because that was all there was.

Living conditions in the United States have improved with each generation for over 300 years. The extremes of hot and cold are taken care of through heating and air conditioning systems. Most of us have warm clothing and plenty of food. We have all the comforts - and we take them for granted without giving a thought to how our ancestors coped with the elements. What would we do if the comfort of a warm home, clothing and food was taken away in a split second? How would we react? Could we cope and survive when confronted with the harsh reality of bitter cold, blistering heat and little food? The questions - and answers - can be seen in the faces and the lives of the homeless people in our cities.

The condition of being homeless is basically defined as a person who "lacks a fixed, regular and night time residence..."

The National Low Income Coalition estimates that between April 2008 and April 2009 there was a 32% increase in foreclosures. During the same period, over six million jobs were lost due to the recession. The combination of increase in foreclosures and lost income has become the recipe for joining the ranks of the homeless. The Coalition observed that poverty and homelessness are "inextricably linked," and that "If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from living on the streets." That is a frightening possibility for many Americans today. During the recession homelessness has become a reality for middle class Americans, too. Many families that felt relatively secure with good careers and incomes suddenly found themselves jobless. The downward spiral of no income, drastically reduced investments to fall back on and too much debt resulted in foreclosure on their homes - an unimaginable nightmare. Ultimately, some of these families found themselves living on the street and sleeping in shelters. It will take time for them to dig out of this deep hole.

The story of how this happened in Middle America has been told many times - and it bears repeating. For the majority of these families the culprit was too much debt and too little savings for an economic emergency. Before the recession hit, credit was readily available for anyone. It was easy to get a mortgage and even easier to buy more house than a family needed. Lending institutions were holding dangerously unstable mortgages taken on by families that were barely able to make the monthly payments.

Then the recession came and economic reality set in.

For the rest of the people - those who still had jobs, the reaction was to retract, stop buying and dig in. Need took priority over want. America sobered up from its 20 year drunken spree with credit - in a hurry. Conservative, thoughtful spending patterns took hold. It was long overdue. The economy is slowly mending. However, the same forces that got the economy into the mess it was in are still at work. Fifth Avenue is still cranking out ads encouraging us to buy, buy, buy. While credit and mortgage lenders are being more prudent, they are still telling us we can borrow or buy that house. Corporate America is still encouraging us to buy their products. In these respects, nothing has changed.

The question is - what has America learned from the experience of a nearly collapsed economy? Hove we learned financial discipline and how to say no? Have we learned the difference between want and need?

It would be easy to say that the financial sector caused the recession. However, it's important to recognize that consumers played a big role in setting up the economic chaos we have all gone through. Will the pain that families went through serve as a lesson for the rest of us, or will we end up writing it off to short term memory loss?