Narratives of Moral Order in Michigan's Foreclosure Crisis

Abstract

In the United States foreclosure crisis since 2007, millions of homeowners have strived but failed to hold onto homeownership. This crisis threatens to unsettle the myth of the American dream and deep-seated cultural beliefs about the self as a moral, political, and financial subject. On the whole, mainstream narratives blame homeowners for their predicaments or at least hold them responsible for the consequences of the housing bust. This article examines how homeowners, housing professionals, and activists in Michigan confront narratives of blame and flawed foreclosure prevention programs. Michigan has been pivotal in the formation of beliefs about the American dream, evidenced in the blue-collar middle class, as well as being emblematic of deindustrialization and the foreclosure crisis. Confronting a multi-layered crisis, homeowners, housing professionals, and activists in Michigan produce narratives of suicide, walking away, or strategically defaulting on the mortgage. These narratives present moral critiques of lenders, enact and challenge tropes of blame, and imagine ways to recapture (albeit constrained) agency. [narrative, morality, foreclosure, American dream, Michigan] A long the main avenue in Michigan's capital, Lansing, a pale blue billboard hung over a sprawling, weedy lot where two auto plants were demolished in 2008. In simple block font it stated, "Foreclosure is hard on the whole family" and directed viewers to the federal government's foreclosure prevention website and hotline. Similar signs hung throughout the city at major intersections and encircled it along the interstate during my 12 months of fieldwork in 2009 and 2010, physically marking it as one of the areas hardest-hit by the national foreclosure crisis. Hanging over the ruins of two auto factories, the billboard also marked the stratigraphy of economic change in the community: the once-prosperous auto industry; deindustrialization starting in the 1970s and accelerating through the shutdown of Oldsmobile, headquartered in Lansing, in 2004; the decade-long recession; and then, one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. These processes have chipped away at the American dream, understood as financial stability and upward mobilitysymbolized by stable, decent work and homeownership. Whereas deindustrialization stripped away the possibility of a dignified work life as it was understood in the post-war period, foreclosure threatens the vision of decent family life symbolized by homeownership. Indeed, the foreclosure prevention campaign run through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) was dubbed "Save the Dream." bs_bs_banner

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