Woman puts a face on foreclosure

Refinance, lost job send her house back to the bank

David Montero, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Debra Dotson was dressed in black, clutched a black rose and fought back tears when she discovered the hard truth Tuesday, that the house she has lived in for 10 years was no longer hers.

Not that she wanted to get rid of it. Instead, she joined thousands of others who have seen their adjustable mortgage rates climb, their monthly house payments climb and their hopes of holding onto their houses plummet into foreclosure.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

"I guess today was the end," Dotson's daughter-in-law, Lanetta Waynewood, said while trying to comfort the 46-year-old woman. "I was praying for a miracle, and it didn't happen."

It would have taken something pretty close to a miracle for Dotson to save her house. She was told she needed to come up with $7,000 by Tuesday to keep it. But for Dotson - who grabbed what looked like a great refinance opportunity in 2004, then lost her job with Denver Public Schools in November 2005 and is scraping by in 2007 with a janitorial job - coming up with that kind of money now would be impossible.

So, she arrived at the Wellington Webb building downtown with ACORN - the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - to protest the auction of her four-bedroom Montbello home.

Ben Hanna, the head organizer of Colorado ACORN, brought 20 others dressed in black to the Public Trustee's Office, where the weekly auction had just taken place. None of the others was losing their home this day.

The transfer of Dotson's home to the bank was quiet.

Inside the Public Trustee's Office, other people went about their business and wouldn't have even known the place Dotson called home couldn't be called that anymore.

Dotson's home, which she bought for $117,000 in 1997, was auctioned to World Savings Bank for $159,333. She has to be out of the house in July.

"I don't know where to go," she said. "I feel lost."

Hanna met Stephanie O'Malley, Denver clerk and recorder and public trustee, and said later that O'Malley agreed to meet with ACORN next week about a six-month moratorium on foreclosures involving some loans.

O'Malley acknowledged foreclosures, which are on a record pace this year, to be a huge problem in the community and a huge drain on her staff.

Last year, Denver had more than 5,100 foreclosures, and 2007 was off to a blistering pace when, through February, 1,057 foreclosure notices had been given.

But the only number that counted to Dotson on Tuesday was one, a green house that she has called home for 10 years. Now it was in the hands of the bank that had sold her the adjustable- rate mortgage in 2004 after she converted it from a 30-year loan with a rate fixed at 7.5 percent. It was a mistake, she said.

"I hesitated, but I did it," Dotson said, adding that she never sought out the ARM but instead was offered it through the bank. When she signed up for it, the interest rate was 5.5 percent. Within three years, it was at 7.5 percent on her refinanced amount. The ARM caps at 11 percent.

Statewide, Colorado was hit by 9,254 foreclosure filings in the first quarter of 2007, putting the state on track to top last year's record foreclosures by about 25 percent. Last year, 28,453 foreclosures were filed statewide. This year, that number could rise to about 36,000.

She said she'd probably have to move into a small apartment with her son and daughter-in- law, who have shared the home with her. The trio sat quietly in the Public Trustee's Office, and Dotson looked at a white piece of paper with a drawing of a house on it, complete with her address.

Or at least, what once was her address.

A blistering pace

5,100 foreclosures, approximately, happened in Denver in 2006.

1,057 foreclosure notices were given this year through February.

monterod@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5236