28 Dec 2009, Posted by Matthew Reinbold in Thought & Theory, 1 Comments

2009 and the Year of Thin Houses

Several months ago my family had the privilege of having someone from South Africa join us for dinner. As the meal began to wind down I inquired on how Americans are perceived in his part of the world. Were we the arrogant, fat war mongers that I sometimes seen portrayed? Were we still the idealized Puritan city upon a hill?

“You Americans,” he said slowly, “have paper thin houses”.

What he meant, upon further discussion, had nothing to do with build quality or thickness of the physical brick and mortar. Instead, he was making an analogy to the strength of our communities. After spending much of the fall in our part of suburbia he was deeply saddened by how families could crumble and disappear at the first sign of distress. It wasn’t a matter of the surrounding neighbors failing to help. In most cases the neighbors didn’t even know the names of those next to them. While the houses would remain the homes would disappear.

Three houses to the north a family bought their “dream house” via an Interest-only loan at the height of the housing bubble. Upside down in their mortgage and unable to sell several years later they disappeared over a weekend. Nobody knew that they were going. They left a foreclosed house in their wake.

The home to the south saw the husband diagnosed with cancer. The chemotherapy made him too ill to work and he lost his job. Without a job he lost his medical insurance. Without insurance he was unable to continue treatment. He now had a “pre-existing condition” and remained jobless. Despite buying their house before the bubble subsequent home loans to make ends meet eventually meant they owed more than the house is worth. They’ve moved to Georgia before having to face the prospect of being forced out. The house, vacant for several months, still awaits the bank to place it into foreclosure.

The home just to the south of that had a father who’s wife had an affair and left him after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease). As his condition worsened he would spend increasing time in his driveway, wheelchair tipped so that he faced the sun while chain smoking. His house was bought by a house flipper as part of a short sale. The downstairs had to be repainted; his kids, down a flight of stairs that he couldn’t navigate, had spray painted obscenities everywhere.

I feel ashamed because these are details that I learned of after each home was gone. I shunned the interest-only loan couple because their kids were terrors I didn’t want associating with my kids. I largely tried to ignore the cancer family because “they were rednecks”. And the incredibly self-conscious feelings I had around the single father meant I avoided contact when he probably could have used it the most. As horrible as my rationale was what’s worse is that I wasn’t the only one.

A recent poll concluded that 70% of Americans were 1-3 paychecks away from disaster. With so many perched so precariously one would think we’d be redoubling support where it matters most – those places where we call home. But considering I couldn’t even be bothered to say “Hello, how you doing?” those networks are in a sorry state.

I’ve heard it said that in this Internet age neighborhoods are of secondary importance. We have the ability to interact with whoever we want wherever they are, rather than whomever is geographically convenient. Because of that we’ll skew toward people having the closest matches to our interests. Why waste time with the house next to you who might enjoy NASCAR when somebody three time zones away gets just as excited as you do over ColdFusion programming? The sentiment is taken to its logical extreme in Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe (available for free). But the pursuits of such ephemeral interests seem to come at a cost. We no longer ascribe the same value to the health of where we live.

This holiday season I was shocked. I’ve resided for five years in my current house and I can’t recall another year when so many neighbors have stopped by with token candies, cards, and well-wishes of a Merry Christmas. Perhaps the people around me are seeking out a greater sense of community in the face of difficult times. Perhaps there’s a more acute understanding that we need each other. Perhaps they share my guilt. Or perhaps this is the natural growing pains of a new suburb; with time cornerstones of the neighborhood will be revealed and a shared identity built upon them.

Regardless of how many Christmas cookies I’ve received, however, the houses amongst which I live are still alarmingly thin. Their state is my own doing. In 2010 I need to see to their strength. The alternative is living in fear of the day when they might collapse for me.