Family, Identity, and the American Dream: Service Providers’ Perspectives on Families’ Experiences With Foreclosure

Abstract

This article reports the findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 service providers who worked with families facing foreclosure. The interviews’ purpose was to better understand a broad range of families’ experiences and inductive coding focused on quotes that reflected the meaning of those experiences. The analysis extracted three main themes related to foreclosure representing threat: (a) foreclosure threatened children’s education, (b) foreclosure threatened family memories, and (c) foreclosure threatened clients’ sense of self and attaining the American Dream. Providers reported that families fought to keep their homes and hoped to buy again after foreclosure. The findings suggest that social work services could be beneficial in helping families navigate the emotional and financial impact of the foreclosure experience.

Losing Hold of the American Dream: A Qualitative Exploration of the Relationship Between Foreclosure and Psychological and Physical Health

“…Families in this study described experiencing extreme stress that was frequently expressed physically and psychologically through stress-related physical ailments as well as mental health struggles. This study adds to previous qualitative research examining the meaning of losing one’s home (Collins & Berg, 2019; Collins et al, 2018) by identifying participants’ experiences regarding how psychological and physical issues both contributed to and resulted from the anticipated loss of their homes. Stress was described as being a result both of having a tenuous financial situation, which was in part due to their own or a family member’s physical health issues (and associated bills and/or loss of wages to deal with them), as well as uncertainty about their housing situations.…”

“…Building on previous research that drew on data from housing service providers, we looked for codes generated in that study (see Collins et al, 2018) to help contextualize the families’ experiences. Having this larger perspective of families’ experiences via service providers’ lenses, we also were able to ask participants about the extent to which their experiences were similar to others’.…”

“…When housing is insecure, it can instead be a source of anxiety, fear, and trepidation. Owning a home has been such an important part of the American dream and of people’s conceptualization of having “made it” that losing a home can be one of the most devastating experiences of a lifetime (Collins & Berg, 2019; Collins et al, 2018; Nettleton & Burrows, 2000). In 2008, during the economic downturn and the housing crisis, 1 in 54 households experienced the loss of a home through a foreclosure, an increase of 81% from the previous year (Christie, 2009).…”

Losing a Little Part of Yourself: Families’ Experiences With Foreclosure

“…Participants were recruited through housing counseling agencies and legal assistance organizations. In a pilot study, service providers working with people experiencing foreclosure were interviewed to examine the potential range of family experiences and situations (Collins, Anthony, Rothstein, & Taylor, 2018); we used that information as guidance in determining the appropriate sampling frame and determining when saturation was achieved (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used in recruiting the sample.…”