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Letter to the editor

Economic changes push St. Petersburg homeowner to the brink of foreclosure

By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
Published February 16, 2008

Rus Cooper-Dowda, seen through the window of her St. Petersburg home, is a few months from losing her home due to taxes and insurance. She has to pay an $813 mortgage while living on a $911 a month Social Security and food stamps.
	[Edmund D. Fountain | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Edmund D. Fountain | Times] Rus Cooper-Dowda and her dog stand outside her St. Petersburg home, which she may lose due to taxes and insurance.

She doesn't fit the foreclosure profile. Not even close.

Rus Cooper-Dowda, 52, didn't buy a house she couldn't afford and didn't get some exotic adjustable-rate mortgage that balloons to double digits. She didn't throw her money away on jewelry, clothing or trips.

Cooper-Dowda's sin was getting sick and divorced. Two things that could happen to anyone. Add in rising taxes and insurance, plus a severe housing slump, and the storm is perfected.

Now she's poised to lose the house she's lived in for 12 years.

A former teacher with two master's degrees, Cooper-Dowda can't sell her modest, 1,200-square-foot concrete- block house and downsize because the market collapsed and there's a lien on the mortgage for back taxes.

Even with a cap on property taxes, and a switch to a cheaper Citizens Property Insurance policy from an out-of-state homeowner's insurer, her mortgage went to $918 a month from $781 last year.

She'll be lucky, she said, to make it to May. And she's called everywhere. The wait for subsidized housing is three years.

"There are people who flipped houses and who got bad mortgages," she said. "I'm the third group. The forgotten group. The folks who are not wealthy, who moved here for the quality of life and because it was cheap, and who thought a fixed income protected them from the pendulum of economics.

"But the taxes and insurance and other things out of our control got too high, too fast.

"We're the group who can't move to North Carolina because we sank it all to move here."

Cooper-Dowda has lupus, an autoimmune disease that essentially turns the body's defense mechanisms against itself. The disorder, which strikes mostly women, affects various parts of the body. In Cooper-Dowda's case, her joints and fatigue plague her the most.

She has to stay out of the sun, and has to use a machine to help her breath at night.

She receives $911 a month in Social Security disability benefits, and $58 in food stamps. Her 21-year-old son, who lives with her, helps with the bills. But she's constantly negotiating with Progress Energy, TECO, Bright House and the city of St. Petersburg to keep her power and gas on, the phone working and the water running.

A push by the federal government and lenders to help homeowners temporarily put off foreclosure helped some. Cooper-Dowda got some relief after she begged Wells Fargo, her mortgage lender, to knock her payment down to $813 a month by spreading part of what she owes over three years. But it's still too much.

"I never thought that if I sat still and did everything right, that I'd be priced out of my home," she said. "Right now, I'm dancing on the deck of the Titanic."

She doesn't own a car and can't drive. Taxis are too expensive, so she takes the bus. A trip to Tampa to see a doctor at the University of South Florida takes six hours and eight different buses.

There are things she won't do anymore, like looking out her front window. "Because I can imagine seeing my furniture on the front lawn," she said. And she won't buy produce at the grocery store. "If it isn't canned or frozen, I can't afford it," she said. "Although I did take a stroll past the fresh fruits the other day. Out of habit, I guess."

She makes sure not to let a bill go unanswered, which usually means writing back that she can't pay it. When the end gets close, the mortgage will be the last bill she'll try to keep paying.

"I feel real bad I can't return the favor," she said. "She (her home) has been real good to us."

So she skips meals and buys her clothing at a thrift store or makes it herself. It's been a year since she's had her hair done. It was at a local barber shop.

Last night, she had a tofu and lettuce sandwich for dinner.

Same as the night before.

In over your head?
The federal government and major lenders this week launched a program to help homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. The program is geared toward those who are behind on payments but do not have a foreclosure sale set within the next 30 days. On a case-by-case basis, lenders may opt to lower interest rates or lengthen the term of the mortgage. Foreclosure may be postponed a month while a plan is being developed.
For help, call your mortgage company directly or call the toll-free HOPE hotline, 1-888-995-HOPE (4673), set up by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation.

Tom Zucco can be reached at zucco@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8247.

[Last modified February 15, 2008, 23:06:32]