Hi, my name is Jo Anne. I’ve been asked to write a short piece on surviving the housing crisis. I will be giving you my point of view, as I have been going through it. I’m certainly no teacher, but maybe someone out there can learn from the mistakes I made trying to navigate this minefield.

My husband, Dave, and I both lost our jobs in 2009. Since then, he has retired and is on Social Security. I found a part-time job at Walmart as a cashier. We are making about half of what we made back then, so you can see money is definitely an issue.

We weren’t too worried when it first happened. We are both professionals, and we never had any trouble getting another job up until now. It is three years later, and we have exhausted our unemployment benefits, which weren’t much to begin with. Dave’s IRA has shrunk to almost nothing as we continue to meet the bills every month.