Foreclosure Crisis Hits Older Americans Hard

More than 1.5 million older Americans already lost their homes, with millions more risk as the national housing crisis takes its on those who are among the worst positioned to the storm, a new AARP report says.

Older African-Americans and Hispanics are the hardest .

"The Great Recession has been brutal many older Americans," said Debra Whitman, AARP's policy chief. "This shows home ownership doesn't guarantee financial security later life."

Even working two jobs hasn't been to allow Jewel Lewis-Hall, 57, to make her monthly mortgage payments on . Her husband has made little money since being off from his job at a farmer's market, and Lewis-Hall said her salary a school cook falls of what she needs to make the payments her home in Washington.

Lewis-Hall and her husband have been their payments late for about a year, but panic didn't in until recently, when the word "foreclosure" showed in a letter from the bank.

"You're used living a certain way, but one thing leads to ," Lewis-Hall said. "It's not like I have a new car or anything. I'm driving from 1991."

Older minorities facing foreclosure rates that are almost double faced by white borrowers of the same , mirroring a nationwide trend seen in other age groups as . Among older African-Americans, 3.5 percent were foreclosure at the end of 2011, and the rate was 3.9 percent for Hispanics. Just 1.9 percent of white homeowners were in foreclosure.

The issue become so dire in Rep. Elijah Cummings' Maryland district that he assigned one of his 20 staffers to work full to help struggling homeowners, and his office regular foreclosure prevention workshops. He said the federal government can do its by promoting principal reduction and loan modification programs.

"These are people in many instances have never missed a payment 20 years," Cummings, a Democrat, said an interview. "You see grown men crying because of the potential of a home."

Among older homeowners, who are 75 or older are in the worst shape when it to foreclosures, the report showed. In 2007, one of every 300 homeowners 75 or older was in foreclosure. Five years later, about one 30 face that same fate.

Many of those oldest homeowners may lost income they were counting , such as the retirement benefits of a deceased spouse. In the , their mortgage payments have stayed same.

The situation is likely to get worse it gets better, AARP officials predicted, because of a housing market that is recovering at a snail's .

"This crisis is far over," Whitman said. "We need to think about more creative solutions that we have this data."


Adapted and abridged from: CNBC, July 19, 2012.