by Pamela Morsi
“It’s no joke,” I assured her in my most egalitarian-colleague voice. “I’ve cleared my calendar and I’m available to help that Saturday.”
There was a long pause at the end of the line. So long, in fact, that I became a little bit desperate to fill it.
“I’ve always intended to help, Ann,” I lied. “But I just couldn’t work it into my schedule before.”
I don’t think she believed me. But she was hardly in a position to turn me down.
“Do you even know anything about affordable housing?”
“Well, no, not specifically,” I admitted, then added on an optimistic note, “but it’s an area of the market that I’m very interested in learning about.”
Ann clearly didn’t believe that either, but she did say I could help.
I showed up promptly on Saturday morning at the Downtown Motor Lodge. It was an old and now infrequently utilized conference hotel on the interstate end of the business district. Graffiti-laden and grimy, it had all the decor ambience of a bus station. I was hesitant to even put my ungloved hand on the dirty doorknob. But I whispered a pep talk under my breath, promised myself a half hour of bath beads with whirlpool bubbles and ventured inside.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the exterior led me to believe. There was an old, musty smell about the place, the furnishings were out of date and faded, but the lobby appeared to be relatively clean.
A misspelled letter-board sign directed me to the appropriate room, where a dozen rows of straight-back chairs in the middle of the room faced a podium. Tables were set up around the perimeter bearing literature, some of it government issue, but mostly just advertising material from the various local Realtors. No one was bothering to look at any of it. The only area that seemed to have attracted any people was the refreshment table, which bore a coffeemaker, stacks of disposable cups, a big box of doughnuts and a pile of institutional paper towels in lieu of napkins.
Ann Rhoder Hines spotted me and immediately hurried in my direction. With every frosted-blond hair in place, she was dressed in a very nice-looking Dior that had been the height of fashion a couple of years earlier. Undoubtedly, she was buying her designers at the outlet mall. They carry all the leftover merchandise at bargain prices. A lot of women in real estate feel as if they can get away with pretending that yesterday’s fashions are merely old favorites. Besides, in her end of the business, the clients didn’t know a Dana from a dog biscuit.
I, on the other hand, was wearing an outrageously expensive young designer called Q.T. The suit was gray and functional enough to be sold at Restoration Hardware. I picked it because I thought it might be best to look a little dowdy among the poor people.
“Good morning!” I called out cheerfully.
“You’re late,” was her rather cranky response.
I glanced down at my watch. It was barely fifteen minutes past the time I was supposed to be there. It hardly seemed worth mentioning, but I gave an explanation anyway.
“I had trouble finding a place to park,” I told her.
Ann’s expression was still disgruntled. “Didn’t you get my e-mail? I told you to park here in the back.”
Her suggestion was laughable. And I admit I did come out with a little chuckle as I shook my head. “Surely you don’t think that I should leave my new BMW in an open lot in this neighborhood.”
Apparently, she didn’t appreciate my humor. She certainly didn’t crack a smile.
“Did you at least read the material that I faxed to you?”
“Oh yes, of course,” I assured her, and it was absolutely true. I didn’t sell five million dollars’ worth of real estate the previous year by ignoring my homework. I would never attempt to do business being unprepared. I think Ann wanted to believe that I was an airhead who was successful because of my connections. Admittedly, I married for money and position, but I worked at my career. And everything that I had achieved, I had reason to be proud of.
“Are you clear on how the government programs operate?” she asked. “Most of your clients don’t even employ gardeners who could qualify.”
That was stretching it.
“I guess I don’t see much of Fannie Mae at the club,” I joked, referring to the nickname of the well-known affordable-housing foundation. “But I have a passing acquaintance with the old gal.”
My attempt at humor failed to lighten Ms. Hines’s mood, and I decided that she was simply the same cranky, dour, frustrated person I always believed her to be. A characterization that seemed to ring absolutely true as I met the other Realtor/volunteers and we were given our orders and assigned our tables.
Once the participants had taken their seats, Ann stepped up to the podium. Immediately, the persona presented was entirely different.
Ann Rhoder Hines had probably been a benchwarmer on the girls’ field hockey team at her high school. But in front of the audience seeking affordable housing, she became a cheerleader. I watched and listened with growing fascination as she made her presentation. She was a true believer. She spoke of the value and opportunity of owning a home with all the certainty and zeal of a faith healer in a revival tent.
Even I, who had been a joint owner of several homes in the twenty years of my marriage, found my heart pounding, my blood racing, my thoughts soaring with expectation.
I glanced around the room at the people assembled, feeling hopeful and optimistic that they would feel exactly the same. They were not regulars at the juice bar, but they were not panhandlers either. It was a room full of working-class citizens, much like those I’d grown up with in Sunnyside. I took some comfort in that. They were basically just like me, I supposed. They put in their days, drew their pay and raised their children. My mother might have called them clean and well-mended. The men were in shirtsleeves. The women were wearing discount. They were mostly white, but people of color made up a third of the numbers.
These folks, according to Ann Rhoder Hines, were the salt of the earth, rock of the community, the foundation of American society. They deserved to live their lives and raise their children in a single-family, three-bedroom, one-bath that they could call their own.
I suddenly saw with great clarity what an opportunity for doing good this was. I should give up selling real estate to the people in my neighborhood and see that each and every person in this room, and all their friends and neighbors, had their own little pieces of the American dream.
When Ann finished speaking, there was a spattering of applause. I clapped louder than anyone, rising to my feet. I was so excited. I was amazed that I had avoided these seminars for so many years. I couldn’t wait to be a helping hand to the downtrodden in this honorable undertaking.
I sat eager and anxious at the table Ann had assigned to me, ready to sort through intake papers, tax records and qualifying sheets to determine lending possibilities.
To my dismay, most of the people who sat down at my table were very hard to help.
A very attractive thirty-four-year-old single mother certainly looked the part of the deserving home owner. But she’d had eleven different jobs in the last five years. She was twice divorced and had credit problems under three different names. Armed with a brand-new MasterCard, her plan was to get a big cash advance to use as a down payment.
An even more problematic situation was the four able-bodied adults, none of whom were related to each other by blood or marriage. Their thinking was that it would be cheaper to pool their rent money and buy a house in common. The legal complexities of such an arrangement had not even occurred to them.
Over and over I told people that they needed to get jobs or get out of debt or accumulate some savings. Sometimes I had to suggest they do all three!
Most listened to what I said, took an information packet and left, disappointed. I was beginning to lose heart.
Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Guerra and Mr. Guerra’s mother took seats at my table. I greeted them with as much warmth and enthusiasm as any potential client I’d ever dealt with. In truth, it was pr
obably more. I often kept myself at an intensely polite but cool distance that gave me a psychological advantage, an advantage much needed in selling. Giving, I realized, didn’t require any such power.
“Good morning, I’m so glad to meet you,” I told them.
Mr. Guerra was short and stocky, in his mid-forties, with a full head of black hair, just beginning to gray around the edges of his face. Both he and his mother bore the distinctive semblance of locally indigenous people. The wife was more European in both facial features and manner. It was she who handed me their papers.
“So you’re wanting to buy a house,” I said to her by way of conversation.
She glanced toward her husband and he answered.
“We want to stay in our neighborhood,” Guerra said firmly. “We are not interested in developments on the north side.”
Obviously this had not been this family’s initial introduction to affordable housing seminars. Often, as tax breaks or eligibility for special programs, builders would throw in a few low-income housing units, usually at gate fronts or backing against the thoroughfares of their developments—the least desirable spots that were the most difficult to sell. It is a perfectly good idea. However Mr. Guerra, like a lot of other people, preferred to buy a home in an area he knew and cared about, rather than one developed completely from scratch.
I looked at the zip code on his address and didn’t think there would be much of a problem. There would be some single-family homes in that area that would qualify for low-income financing.
“How many in your household, Mr. Guerra?”
He glanced toward his wife. She counted it out on her fingers.
“Eight,” he answered. “Our three children, two of my nephews and my mother, of course.”
I kept smiling, but I wasn’t pleased. Eight people required a pretty big house.
I looked through their income information.
“You and your wife are both employed?”
He nodded. “Mama keeps the children,” he answered.
According to his tax forms, he was something called a table braider at Weigan Industrial. I knew Les Weigan. He was a member of the club and a friend of David’s father.
Mrs. Guerra worked at a local pizza place. I was surprised. I suppose I thought those minimum-wage jobs were part-time work done exclusively by students.
I frowned at the total that Mr. Guerra had written down on his application form. It was more than what was indicated on his 1040.
“Your annual household income is higher than your taxable earnings would suggest,” I said.
“I added in Mama’s social security,” Mr. Guerra told me. “The other woman said that we could.” He indicated Ann Rhoder Hines who was filling out forms at another table.
“Yes, of course,” I agreed, glancing at the older woman. “If Mrs. Guerra lives with you, her income can be included.”
The older woman raised her chin and announced proudly, “Three hundred twenty-three dollars a month.”
I felt a thrill of hope rush through me. These were fine people, hardworking people. And I was going to help them buy a home. That was really something good.
I perused their expense reports and was less heartened. Food, clothing, utilities, none of these things came cheap.
“This six-thousand-dollar debt?” I asked. “Is this automobile or credit cards?”
There was a silent stillness so abrupt, I looked up.
The Guerra family was extremely ill at ease, not so much as casting a glance at each other.
“It’s Papa’s funeral expenses,” Mr. Guerra finally told me quietly. “We’re paying it off directly to the funeral home.”
“What kind of interest are you paying?”
The man shrugged and shook his head. “I didn’t ask,” he told me. I stared at him in disbelief.
“The paper is in there,” he said.
I shuffled through until I found it. I almost moaned out loud. The interest on it was twenty-four percent, the highest allowed by law. They’d already made payments for two years and had yet to touch the principal.
“You could have gotten a better rate at the bank,” I pointed out.
Mr. Guerra looked at me, puzzled. “A bank? A bank wants…what was it?” he asked his wife.
“Collateral,” she answered.
He nodded. “The bank wants collateral for their loans,” he said.
That’s right, of course. The bank wouldn’t loan money for a funeral. What could they do if the money wasn’t paid back? Dig up the corpse? You had to own something in order to borrow. The Guerras didn’t have anything but a strong work ethic and a handful of kids.
I continued to look through their forms and records, worry superseding hope.
Finally I smiled brightly at them.
“Would you excuse me for just a minute,” I said. “I need to ask a couple of questions.” I smiled even harder. “Just one minute.”
I grabbed up my notepad as if I was going to use it and hurried over to where Ann Rhoder Hines was orchestrating the movement of families to different tables. I signaled that I needed a word with her and then waited patiently as she made no attempt to hurry.
Finally she was free and she turned to me.
“I’ve got a problem here,” I said.
She raised a condescending eyebrow. “I thought you were supposed to be such a hotshot real estate person,” she said. “You find something you can’t handle?”
I refused to let the poisonous drip of her tongue deter me. We were both trying to do good here, I was just worried about how we were going to do it.
“I’m having trouble with the Guerras’ finances,” I told her. “Their credit score barely meets requirements and they’ve got a commercial service debt that could really impact their ability to pay.”
“So do they qualify or not?” she asked me.
“Well, yes, they do,” I admitted. “But they’ll have to borrow the down payment and closing costs from the affordable housing consortium. Then there will be the real estate loan and this outstanding obligation—I don’t think they’ll be able to make it.”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me, annoyed.
“It’s not for you to make that judgment,” she said. “It’s your job to get them through the paperwork to buy a home.”
“But what if something, anything happens?” I said. “One little unexpected expense and they won’t be able to make their payments. They’ll lose the house.”
Ann shrugged. “You know, 35.6 percent of affordables get foreclosed,” she said. “What we’re giving these people is a chance. What they make of it is up to them. Don’t tell me you’ve never sold a house where you thought the buyers were in over their heads.”
She was right about that, of course. I sold houses every week to high rollers whose financial house of cards could come tumbling down any second. But I’d never made those deals as an altruistic act.
“If they try now and fail, they’ll never get another chance.”
That was the grim, awful truth that stared me in the face, as sure and stoic as Mr. Guerra’s mother.
“So what did you do?” Chester asked me on my next visit to the assisted living center.
“I went ahead with the deal,” I told him. “The Guerras were happy. Ann Rhoder Hines was happy. I’m sure the sponsors of the seminar were happy. But I don’t feel happy about it at all. I’m nervous. I gave Mr. Guerra my card, and I am personally handling everything. I don’t want any slipups or unexpected glitches. These people will be walking a financial tightrope for at least the next five years.”
Chester nodded sympathetically. “They probably already have been,” he pointed out. “They might very well be used to it.”
I agreed with him, but it didn’t make me feel one bit better.
“I thought about just paying off that loan,” I said. “David would probably have me committed. I’ve been giving away money faster than I’m taking it in. But I’d do it anyway if I thou
ght the Guerras would accept it. I’m sure they won’t.”
“And they shouldn’t,” Chester said. “It was their loved one who died. Having a stranger pick up the tab as charity does nothing to honor his memory.”
“But I want to do something to help,” I complained.
“You are and you will,” he assured me. “You can’t just rush in like a fairy godmother and wave a wand, making everything perfect. You’ve got to wait for your opportunities. They’ll come.”
“You’re sure?” I asked him.
He nodded.
Chester was looking very thin in the morning sunshine that striped the room through the window blinds. His bony frame was covered by a shirt and pants that looked two sizes too big, giving him a thin, shrunken appearance. His feet, which were swathed heavily in bandages and covered by huge paper slippers, seemed to dwarf the rest of him.
His thinness reminded me of what I’d brought. I dug down into my purse and retrieved a giant, king-size Snickers. I handed it to him.
“My do-good deed of the day,” I said, teasing.
To my surprise, he didn’t laugh at my little joke. He looked down at the candy bar as if it represented a lot more than chocolate, sugar and empty calories.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “I’m just going to save this for later.”
He secreted it in the chest next to his bed. When he returned to his chair, he patted my hand gratefully.
“You are doing good,” he assured me. “Sometimes when you don’t even know.”
I laughed with a lot of self-derision.
“In all honesty,” I admitted, “this whole promise thing just terrifies me.”
“Why is that?”
“In that car, when I said I’d do good, I really meant it.”
“And now you don’t?”
“I do,” I assured him. “But I’m scared of what it might require. I’m scared that maybe I promised to take in motherless crack babies or nurse AIDS patients in Africa or counsel rape victims on a hotline.”
“And you don’t want to do those things.”
“I don’t know how to do those things,” I said. “They take a really special kind of person. I’m not a special person. I’m a very ordinary person.”
