By Jim Holt
The SCV Independent

Kathleen Hill falls softly onto the couch, tucks her legs under a quilt and aims the TV remote at the flat screen to mute it. Her husband, Brett, lets the dogs out into the backyard. He turns off the overhead light in the kitchen.

The stove light softens the outline of a comfortable lifestyle. But, it's lie.

This is not their home. Tonight, Brett and Kathleen are house-sitting for their neighbors - more specifically, their former neighbors - because when they glance out the side window here, they see the Valencia home they lived in for most of the time their children attended elementary school, learned how to skateboard, played basketball in the driveway.

Tonight Brett and Kathleen settle on the L-shaped couch, and get ready to share their story of foreclosure with the Santa Clarita Valley Independent.

"It's not like we didn't make all the right decisions, but it's not like we were letting things happen to us," Kathleen explains.
"We were pro-active and we did say - ironically enough - we said ‘The worst thing that could happen is that we lose
the house.' "But, when you say it and it's actually happening ... "

Kathleen stops her story, puts a hand up. She doesn't want to cry.

"I would lay in my bed and look out my window, looking at the view and think ‘I can't leave this spot on earth.' Not because of the house. It's the first home I had - home. Since I married Brett it was the first home I had in my life, in my world, with my family.

"The neighbors on either side and lothers in the community - that's what made this spot on earth my home," she added. "It wasn't the house - I could lose any house. We sold all our furniture. I sold all my jewelry. I sold my engagement ring, a diamond engagement ring. I sold anything gold. It didn't matter, as long as I had my family - but that is the place on this earth where I belonged."

But, not anymore. Their story of displacement, homelessness and loss could be the story written for any of us.They weren't speculators who tried to make a quick buck, who lost an investment in the sub-prime mortgage frenzy. They didn't overextend themselves charging a lavish lifestyle to credit cards.

Brett shakes his head."It's as if we broke two mirrors and got 14 years bad luck," he says. Unfortunate events Their daughter, Allie, excitable, friendly and chatty, wants to stay for the interview, but her parents convince her they have to talk. She trudges upstairs reluctantly.

The Hills also have two teenage sons; Allie is the youngest. She was also born with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome. It wasn't genetic. It was just by chance.

RTS is a condition characterized by short stature, moderate to severe learning difficulties, distinctive facial features, and broad thumbs and first toes. Other features of the disorder vary among affected individuals. People with this condition
have an increased risk of developing noncancerous and cancerous tumors, leukemia and lymphoma.

This condition is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern and is uncommon, occurring in an estimated one in 125,000 births. Children with special needs need special parents. "Seventy percent of people divorce who have a child with special needs," said the woman who up until Allie was born, worked as a licensed X-ray technician.

As a firefighter with the South Pasadena Fire Department, her husband worked hard, too, risking his life daily for his family.
Two incomes became one, however, when Kathleen was compelled to stay home with Allie. Then, one day, by chance, when Brett was taking part in the crew's daily exercise regimen, he accidentally stepped on a hockey stick and broke his ankle.
Unable to work, after surgeries involving steel pins and rods, he retired and signed on with a private technology company.

When that failed to pay the bills fast enough he signed on with a second private company, juggling both enterprises.
When money demands forced Kathleen to return towork she learned her X-ray technician license had expired with newly-introduced state rules. She missed the unannounced deadline by three months but state officials were not forgiving.

"I got angry," Kathleen said. "I said ‘Do you not understand my dire circumstances? I need to go back to work for my
family'. " Desperate and suddenly with no recognized credentials, shebagged groceries at Ralph's for a while just to make ends meet.

The Hills also refinanced their home a couple of times. That's when the mortgage crisis hit America. It hit the Hills with one
unmovable hammer-like mortgage in the heart of suburban Valencia.

"I crashed into a very serious depression," Kathleen said, twisting under the quilt. "I crashed hard. I couldn't function."

Before the hammer came down, Kathleen Hill was your typical Valencia soccer mom. A statuesque blonde with boundless energy, darting here and there - church stuff, school activities and, of course, the games. A daughter, two sons, a devoted husband, two golden labs, all living in a huge home at the top of the hill, on a cul-de-sac. It was the great American Dream.

On warm summer nights the Hills would join their neighbors at the hilltop to watch the Six Flags fireworks explode
muted across the Valley. The world seemed peaceful and normal. Then one day the key to their house didn't open the door.

Although they saw that day coming, the Hills suddenly found themselves living in an SUV. And they're not alone.
More families like the Hills will lose their homes, said mortgage statistic expert, Daren Blomquist, of RealtyTrac, which monitors mortgages.

"The first wave of foreclosures that took place late last year happened because of the subprime mortgage crunch," he said.
"The second shoe is about to drop, ushering in a new wave of foreclosures."

What does a second shoe dropping sound like? The SCV Independent found a chorus of worrisome national, statewide and
local statistics on the rise - unemployment, foreclosures, mortgage defaults, evictions. "We believe that most of the foreclosures are more to do with the problem of sub-prime mortgages," Blomquist said. "We definitely believe that the impact from unemploymentrates has not fully been seen yet."

Blomquist, who reviewed specific statistics gathered on Santa Clarita, said: "The foreclosure numbers are following the trend seen in other parts of the country. According to RealtyTrac, in April 2009, there were  over 150 new foreclosures in the 91350 and the 91390 zip codes and 96,450 statewide.

“Foreclosures are up 45 to 50 percent in Santa Clarita from a year ago,” he said, noting that despite a “substantial decrease in foreclosures in April,” those numbers are expected to rise.

Driving down the tree-lined shadowed streets, these homes are all but invisible. Anyone can see them, however, if they click on Foreclosure.com, where the homes are pictured rash-like on a chart of Valencia. Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 percent to 8.9 percent. Since December 2007, more than 5.7 million jobs have been lost in America, according to the report.

Although several home development projects have been approved for Santa Clarita Valley by the Los Angeles County Planning Department, c o n s t r u c t i o n employment nationwide declined by 110,000 in April. Over the last six
months, job losses across the country have averaged 120,000 per month, compared with 46,000 per month from December 2007 through October.

“The next round of foreclosures are not going to be as much of a surprise to banks,” Blomquist said. “It’s something they can
see coming. Whereas the sub-prime market really blindsided them.”

Brett Hill knows his days of running into burning buildings are over. His wife is under no illusion that the road to reclaiming her X-Ray technician’s license is arduous.

No job means no money, means no payment on the mortgage. And more and more Santa Clarita home dwellers, now unemployed, simply can’t pay their mortgages. One local breast cancer survivor told The Independent that an imaging technician told her significantly fewer women are getting mammograms in Valencia because they can’t afford it because of
unemployment.

In March, the number of Los Angeles County residents who fell behind in payments by more than 90 days - rose to
almost nine percent of all county mortgages – more than double the percentage logged a year ago, according to a report
completed by First American CoreLogic. As well, foreclosure papers were filed in relation to 2.3 percent of county mortgages
in March, up from 1.9 percent in March 2008.

That report, confirmed by Megan Donovan of First American CoreLogic, showed moneylenders repossessed property on 1.6 percent of county mortgages, up from 1.2 percent a year earlier.

Unlike some other foreclosure victims, the Hills didn’t have to be forcibly evicted when pushed by the bank to leave. They had done all they could to keep their home and had lost. Some find it difficult to simply walk away from the lifestyle they live.

Sgt. John Fernandez runs the Civil Management Unit of the Los Angles Country Sheriff’s Department. His 20 officers are the ones called on by the courts to evict people ordered to vacate their homes after defaulting on their mortgages.

“A man’s home is his castle.
He’s king,” Fernandez said. “But, the sheriff’s department is the only agency allowed to remove that person. “The number
of evictions due to foreclosure, does seem to be a going up a bit, and there is a rise in the number (of evictions) in the northern part of the county, including Santa Clarita.” Sheriff’s deputies only get involved if people refuse to leave their homes after foreclosure.

Most people don’t fight the order to give up their home, Sgt. Fernandez said. “If they are there when our deputies arrive, we explain the situation again to them,” he said. “We give them a reasonable amount of time to get whatever belongings they have.”

The Hills were fortunate to leave with their possessions and a place to go to. “We’re so lucky we had family to take us in,” Kathleen Hill said, referring to her mother who lives in Saugus, only a mile or so over the shrub-dotted wilderness tract
at the back of their former home. Brett and Kathleen moved into her parents’ fourbedroom home with their
three children.

“What do people do who don’t have that?” she asks. Some end up taking their kids to a free pancake breakfast. Helping out Linda Malerba, is the Director of Lutheran Social Services of Southern California in Canyon Country. She deals with several
– suddenly homeless – Santa Clarita families who show up living in their car. On the last Saturday in Arpil, she held a pancake
breakfast to help those down on their luck including foreclosure victims.

Only a handful showed up for pancakes, but those like single mom Andrea Jimenez were grateful. “It is completely awful,”
she said about being homeless with three kids. “We were displaced. We went through a lot of challenges. We went from shelter to shelter.”

Now, through the Lutheran Social Services, she is back on her feet, living in a rental. For Brett and Kathleen
Hill the future looks brighter than the darkness from which they’re now emerging. She works twice a week for her father.
And he is hoping Pres. Obama’s plan to improve health care will bring in business for his firm, EmergiLink – a device that
helps paramedics identify victims even when those victims are unable to identify themselves.

“The soccer mom is a façade,” Kathleen said reflecting on life before the crash. Behind these doors there are some very
real budget discussions about money and debt. That’s what you don’t see driving through Valencia."

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