Refinance Free Credit

The United States has the highest number of children growing up in a single-parent home in the developed world. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, data from 1998 shows that approximately 34% of families in the US were headed by a single parent and of this, 84% were headed by single women.

Kenyans living in the United States are not exempt from these statistics. Although solid data specifically targeting Kenyan homes in the United States headed by single women is hard to come by, anecdotal evidence informally gathered through social networks suggests that this is a growing phenomenon.

Living in the United States for a couple of years, to borrow a Luo phrase, is enough to "sharpen one's ears" very quickly - having "sharp ears" in this context means you are alert and cannot be easily fooled - someone with sharp ears is someone who's ite (ears) olirore (are sharp), but you can't help but hear some heart wrenching stories of otherwise very intelligent women who have been here a while falling prey to all sorts of preventable scams.

One of the most common scams a lot of Kenyan women have fallen for is mortgage deals that are too good to be true and goes something like this; a single mom, either recently divorced or separated and suddenly thrust into the responsibility of providing for her children and ensuring that she is employable - a very tough situation to be in here in the United States today with an economy teetering on the edges of a recession.

The only free time she has is used to make sure all the little house business is in order and to catch some sleep after a long day at work. Although she may have a computer at home, her trusted "google", or information verifier and confidante, is her social network, usually other women in similar situations.

A very sweet-talking, gung-ho "real estate person" ( we never know exactly what their real qualifications are - all we know is that they are "in real estate") has recently sold a house to her friend and the deal was too good to be true. She did not have to put any money down except for a percentage of the closing cost. She immediately decides this is the way to go and withdraws her life savings to put it down on her longtime dream of owning her home. The single mom decides that although no money is required for a down payment, she will plunk down USD$ 20,000 just to be ahead of the game and will try to pay off the house as soon as possible. She had always been made to think that her credit was not good enough so this is a chance she is not going to miss.

What is really going here is that this is most likely a sub-broker, a go-between the unsuspecting victim and a real estate mortgage company or a realtor. He or she is probably not even licensed sell or transact real estate deals.

The deal is done and it has been a few months since the single mother moved into the house. She has dutifully sent payments to the sub-broker and has big plans to increase her payments when all of a sudden, she starts getting strange letters from a bank titled, "YOU ARE ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR HOME - DO NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER".

Mystified, she does exactly that at first thinking it's some kind of aggressive prank to get her to buy some product she does not need. The letters get more intense so she decides to call her "real estate person" who assures her that everything is fine and she can ignore those letters.

About a month later, someone knocks the door one evening and demands to inspect the house. He is carrying a drawing of a floor plan that has her address on top of it and he is accompanied by the county sheriff. He says that he was sent by the bank to inspect the house because they are about to foreclose on the property and the bank needs to know the condition of the house. She tries to tell the inspector that something must be wrong, but he ignores her thinking that this is the typical behavior of people who are about to lose their homes. He is prepared with a stack of business cards from the bank's homeowners' assistance department. When he is done inspecting the house, he hands one of the cards to her. That is all he can do and immediately leaves after inspecting the house. The single mom calls her contact again but his phone number is disconnected and he is nowhere to be found. She had never visited his office and had always dealt with him by phone. There was no need to go to his office. Everything had worked so smoothly and whenever there was paperwork to be done, he always brought it to her place. When she goes to the address listed on the business card, it turns out to be a Mail Boxes Etc PO BOX. Due to privacy reasons, the staff at MBE cannot release any information to her. She is dumbfounded.

Within less than a month, she is given a notice by the same sheriff who escorted the inspector demanding that she vacate the property within 45 days and if she fails to do so will be forcibly removed by the sheriff department's Justice of the Peace.

With less than 5 days to go, she tries to negotiate with the bank, but it is too late. All they can do is give her an additional 10 days to find an alternative place to stay.

She does not know what to do. Her life savings are gone, her kids are in a wonderful public school district, the house is less than 15 minutes from her new job posting at the new medical center not far from the shopping center in town. Desperation sets in.

This sounds like my poor attempt at writing a novel but it is drawn from several real life experiences.

I will continue with part 2 of this story with resources and ideas of how single mothers can get help.