Restructurings Burn the Midnight Oil
I’m heading home now, but the NACA people tell me they’ll be here again until midnight. People who have been waiting all day in various lines look tired and worn out, but now and then a NACA staffer takes to the microphone in the loan restructuring room to urge them to stay patient, and not to go. NACA closes up shop Thursday at noon. This really will be the last chance for many.
It’s been an emotional afternoon, too, as borrowers also occasionally stand up to offer a little testimony and a pep talk. It feels, oddly, a little bit like an AA meeting. All the noise in the loan restructuring room stops as “Kevin” gets up to talk. He’s been in a bad way since 2003 until now, he says. His wife is very sick with lupus and may die. He’s behind on his mortgage, and he sent a hardship letter to his lender. The lender wrote back and told him to sell his house and get another job.
Today, his loan payment was reduced from $2,055 to $1,282, he says, to cheers and applause.
He begs everyone to be patient. He said he spent from 1:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. here on Saturday, and came back today at 10:15 a.m. Finally, he’s got his new mortgage. “It is so worth it,” Kevin says. “Please don’t leave.”
Then the room quiets down again, except for the shuffling of papers on tables and the slow movement of a line that still seems to have no end in sight.
