With the latest real estate number showing yet another wave of foreclosures upon us, a new study reported in the New York Times shows that this growing economic contagion has significant health impacts as well. I have discussed elsewhere how long-term (more than 6 months) of unemployment brings on varying levels of depression and other ailment, so it really isn’t much of surprise to find those and other illnesses increasing among people facing or going through foreclosure. In a way, paying your mortgage is something you do regularly, like a job. When it becomes very difficult or impossible, it’s a lot like a layoff. The difference, however, is that it’s a long, slow, torturous process in which the financial sector seems to positively delight in inflicting as much psychological pain as they can.
The study by Craig E. Pollack and Julia F. Lynch, is grim reading:
A growing body of research shows that foreclosure itself harms the health of families and communities. In our 2008 survey of 250 people undergoing foreclosure in the Philadelphia area, 32 percent reported missing doctor’s appointments and 48 percent said they let prescriptions go unfilled, significantly higher rates than others in their community. A paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that people living in high-foreclosure areas in New Jersey, Arizona, California and Florida were significantly more likely than those in less hard-hit neighborhoods to be hospitalized for conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart failure.
More than one-third of homeowners in our study had symptoms of major depression. The N.B.E.R. study found significantly more suicide attempts in high-foreclosure neighborhoods. For every 100 foreclosures, it found a 12 percent increase in anxiety-related emergency-room visits and hospitalizations by adults under 50. Losing a home disrupts social ties to neighbors, schools, jobs and health care providers — ties that under better circumstances promote good health. Neighborhoods suffer, not just homeowners.
I’ve noticed that when people become vulnerable economically, they become subject to a kind of cascade failure. Losing a job wears you down, and it becomes harder find a new job. That in turn affects your health and mental state, making the situation worse. As things wear out or break down, it becomes impossible to replace them adequately. And so it goes. But having said that, treating depression is not that difficult, and palliative care is not terribly costly. Just addressing this problem can improve the chances of a former breadwinner getting back into the work force.
One very troubling aspect of the Pollack/Lynch report is that mortgage counselors increasingly find themselves working as ad hoc psychological counselors when their clients start to talk about suicide. They note that “in a national survey of 395 mortgage counselors we conducted in January, 37 percent said they had worked with at least one homeowner in the past month who was considering suicide.” Now many mortgage counselors are undergoing crash training in suicide prevention. Yet another instance of outsourcing, I suppose.
Reports like this one continue to make clear that an alternative form of financing and economics must be found that cannot be so easily, thoroughly, and permanently corrupted without accountability for its excessive cost in our collective health and well-being.
