The dominant public discourse surrounding the recent mortgage crisis often coalesces around two stories. The first is a story about the greed and speculative practices that led homeowners to take on investments that turned out to be too risky. The second is a story about predatory lending practices that steered homeowners, and in particular predominantly lower-income and minority homeowners, into bad loans. In this paper, I present a third narrative about mortgage default and foreclosure that emerged from 30 in-depth interviews with working-class, African American homeowners who resided in one predominantly African American urban neighborhood and were at risk of losing their homes.

These narratives speak to a broader fragility of homeownership among working class African Americans that extends beyond the behaviors of borrowers and lenders and points to more systematic sources of inequality.  In particular, these narratives speak to the ways that structurally produced race-based inequalities in health, wealth and housing opportunities intersect with each other and with a fragile social safety net to put families at risk of foreclosure. Many participants in this study were long-term homeowners who experienced mortgage strain as result of a health related event that triggered the collapse of a fragile household budget.  Like many working-class African Americans, participants experienced poor health and disability at relatively young ages, before they were able to qualify for age related income supports. Additionally, they often lacked adequate safety nets to buffer the consequences of illness and disability. Resulting from an ongoing history of racial discrimination, working-class African American homeowners such as participants in this study often have little family or personal wealth to draw on in the event of a health crisis. Many homeowners in this study were in fact the most resourced members of larger social and family networks. Additionally, their health and financial problems were often compounded by holes in the public safety net such as inadequate unemployment, disability and medical insurance. From a policy perspective, these interviews suggest a need to strengthen safety nets that are available to individuals who become ill or disabled. These interviews also point to the devastating financial consequences of racial disparities in health.