We all hear people talking online and offline, going on and on about the homeless crisis and how and why it has always been a never ending plague in our states. I read recently, in an article about the homelessness crisis here in California (link to the article I'm referring to is below), talking about the last four years and how we have spent a stunning $17.5 billion trying to combat our homeless pandemic over just the last four years, yet, in that same time frame, our state’s homeless population actually grew. In fact, half of all Americans living outside on the streets, (as shown by federal data) lives right here in California. Worse than that, California is adding more and more homeless each year, than any other state in the nation. Federal data also shows that more than 170,000 unhoused people now live here, but we all know that that only represents individuals who come forward to be counted and not the masses who for various reasons aren't ever included in those counts.
The excuses as to why not just California's homeless population is growing so steadily, but everywhere really, are the same as usual. Everything from "choosing to be on the streets," to "feeling more safe on the streets than in the system of debts," right down to "they bought too much house or were bad at budgeting." Thankfully (not!) these feel better so one can sleep peacefully every night, is just as bad as waiting for our representative and governments to stop pointing fingers and actually do their jobs. Every email I send out always seems to get me a response pointing the finger at one party over the other. Never mind, intelligent Americans know this is an serious, horrific, and across the board failure of the entire governmental system, period! But, KOVH is focused on our veteran population, and the men and women (and their amazing families) who gave so much to this country.
Yesterday I had to try and speak with our existing lender (a top 10 ranked mortgage servicer) where I learned that they currently hold over 1.2 million homes in loss mitigation review.. MILLIONS.. and that the loss mitigation options aren't to help the homeowners but to try and prevent the loan from falling into foreclosure. Which, with the pandemic and all of the extensions and pauses on payments, has now left us and them hung out to dry with now help in sight and zero action being taken to remedy anything before these same millions upon millions are put out onto the streets.
Further, I read where the budget for 2024 includes: "The 2023-2024 city budget includes $250 million for Inside Safe. From the total, $110 million will be used to pay for temporary motels. $21 million will be used for permanent housing." Nowhere, in this budget, can i find any funding for existing homeowners or programs to help us fighting for our lives to stay housed. Nearly every family who has already lost everything over the last few years, through the ones I am so blessed to speak with every day, say the same thing. We have unaffordable housing in unaffordable communities in states that cater to the wealthy and leave us out to dry. If you aren't homeless and penniless, you simply don't matter. If you are looking for proof, ponder this: During the global pandemic, you know the one that impacted all of us everywhere, rent and mortgages. Evictions and foreclosures were all paused. For most of the families fighting to save their homes (like mine) we were already behind, battling lender lies, income issues, health problems, and trying to just get by every day. My family was behind a whopping 70k+ before the pandemic, the mortgage and foreclosure pauses were great while they were in place, but all of us who were trying to create new incomes, or return to our existing ones while paying for food and keeping our families safe, and thought that those payments would be treated differently...would be put to the end of the mortgage cycles, after all it was a national crisis and emergency and people come before profit in this country right? (Insert sarcasm here) However, as we all found out, while those payments would be due once the pauses were over, and would not be due all at once, the unaffordable additional payments to pay back those missed payments on top of your existing mortgage would leave every single family in our shoes, screwed.
Without an oversight committee to go into these mortgages and ensure that all that could possible be done to help keep our veterans and their families in their homes, that dollar amounts were accounted for and justified, that fees and those nasty little extra costs were all within the reasonable and regulatory legal limits. For far too long lenders and banks have gotten away with tacking on extra fees, large fees, delaying and dragging out things out month after month claiming to not have received papers they signed for or were fax'd, much less cashing payments while claiming they didn't receive them. Even more have received so many bad reviews for all of the above, that they clearly should not have the privilege of holding veteran families or their futures in their hands. Because those, like me, aren't gaining the traction and drumming our war drums loud enough, they get to continue destroying lives, taking homes, and holding veteran families in a debt riddled prison (all legally of course), while helping themselves has always come before the families they are fortunate to hold the mortgages of, and when life turns upside down and these same families need intervention and programs, resources and support, there are none.
Brave men and women and their families have given blood, sweat, and tears to this country just to continue being treated lesser than those who weren't even born here. We can find billions of dollars to send overseas for various humanitarian missions, political agendas, and to force the fist of democracy down the throats of those who wont behave and believe, live and love as we do here at home.....but, we cannot afford to provide the protection, housing, employment opportunities, and support or respect for them once they are issued their DD214's. Expendable, useless, no longer a concern to the very country that nearly of them would still put their lives on the line defending and protecting today. So, yes, there is no magic silver bullet. But yo have to completely blind and deaf to not see or hear the real reasons veterans and their families are being shunned and slowly killed off. KOVH is the first and only existing platform to raise awareness to, offer support to, and fight to stop all veteran foreclsoures. It costs LESS to keep these families in their homes than it does to force them out onto our city streets. The excuses and bs are old, I'm tired of them all.
KOVH needs your continued shares, likes, follows, monetary support, as well as help getting the signatures and shares we need to spread the word and be the voice for these amazing families. None of us deserve to fly that American flag while the very men and women and their families are continued to be forced to struggle beneath poverty, fight for their homes, go hungry, and lose their lives. They matter...It matters. This is a national call to action.
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