Shelter From the Storm
The foreclosure crisis hits home for kids, says one Dobbins freshman who's seen it close up.
Photographs by Michael Persico
It's a warm spring afternoon, and Tiffany Rodriguez should be in school, finishing up ninth grade at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philadelphia. She's pacing around the house instead, searching for something to clean. There's really nothing--she's been cleaning the same rooms for days. Tiffany, who's 14, hasn't been to school in two months.
In December the Rodriguez home in Juniata Park, a quiet North Phillyneighborhood off Roosevelt Boulevard, was served with a notice of foreclosure.
Since then Tiffany has been hospitalized three times for stress-related asthma attacks--first in December and twice in March, for 10 nights total.
After her third attack she stopped going to school and was summoned to truancy court. In early April Tiffany returned to the emergency room for severe pain in her legs, a side effect of an anti-asthma steroid she'd been taking. Previously, Tiffany had near-perfect attendance in school, and she'd never been hospitalized in her life.
Tiffany says it's the thought of losing the house that triggered her attacks. She cleans to keep herself from getting lost in that nervous daydream again. "It's real important to keep my mind off of it," she says.
The Rodriguez home is 1,500 square feet, a medium-sized two-story row house with yellow brick and a bright white front door. It's close to the Boulevard, but feels far from its noise and traffic.
 |
| House proud: Tiffany Rodriguez has missed enough school due to foreclosure fears that she might have to repeat ninth grade. |
During the day the block is quiet other than some young guys working on their cars and older residents sweeping their sidewalks. On warm nights Tiffany's mom Maritza grills dinner on their little concrete porch while her daughters sit out on the deck chairs. Maritza says there's trouble a few blocks away in either direction--fast cars, drugs, fights--but never in front of her house.
It's tight quarters these days. There's Maritza, 46, who works full-time at a daycare center, and her partner Dana Tanon, 44, who moved in after losing her own house to foreclosure last year.
And there's Tiffany, her sister Jennifer, 19, and her oldest sister Lillian, 25. All three are striking, with long, dark, curly hair and tough-sweet voices, lightly touched with a Spanish accent. Lillian also has two children, ages 3 and 5.
No easy thing having four adults, one teenager, two toddlers, plus a cat and her litter of newborn kittens, all living under one modest roof in the midst of a major crisis. You might expect the house to be excusably messy. Instead, thanks to Tiffany, it's always spotless.
Earlier this month a Washington, D.C.-based policy group called First Focus released the first-ever report on the impact of foreclosure on children.
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
Philadelphia Welcomes the First International Free Speech Film Festival
Article:
Angry-Man Author Buzz Bissinger Turns Himself Inside Out for Heartwrenching Memoir
Article:
Why Geeks of All Colors Need the Black Tribbles
Article:
How Two Photojournalists Are Taking on the City's Gun Crisis
Article:
Attorney General Candidates Patrick Murphy and Kathleen Kane Battle in the Democratic Primary
Article:
Why You Should Care About These Primary Challenges
Article:
The Rise and Fall, Again, of Rick Santorum's Political Ambition
Article:
New Book, "99 Nights With the 99 Percent," Offers Perspective on Occupy Philly
1. drbassman said... on May 25, 2008 at 09:16AM
“LACK OF BEING EDJUCATED FOR LIVING IN A COMMERCIALLY-GEARED AND LAWYER CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT HAS ONCE AGAIN CAUSED PROBLEMS FOR A NAIVE CONSUMER WITH REVERBERATIONS MANIFESTED IN HER CHILD'S SUCCUMBING TO OVERWHELMING THOUGHTS OF PERIL.”
2. Meg said... on May 27, 2008 at 11:56AM
“I'm sorry, but I honestly can't feel as much sympathy for Tiffany and her family as I should. I was a sophomore in high school when my mom's house went into foreclosure 10 years ago. How did I find out about it? When I came home from school one day to find sheriff's sale signs plastered all over my home. My mom couldn't get a stay on the foreclosure and we didn't find a new place until the weekend we were supposed to move. We had to move all our belongings in two days, leaving behind old family photos, my mom's wedding dress, her record collection, etc. Do you know how humiliating all of that is for a 15 year old girl? Especially when I brought a friend home from school that day when I first learned how bad my mom's finances were. Or how awful it felt when my dad called on the day that we were packing our entire life into a U-Haul and I finally told him the situation, because I was so embarrassed that I was thisclose to being homeless. But you know what? I still went to school everyday. I lived in an area where foreclosure didn't happen to my neighbors and it certainly wasn't as common as it unfortunately is now. I can go on about how disgusting it is that the mother in this story didn't bother learning about home ownership or about how mortgages work, but that, sadly, is a fact that many people are learning these days. No, what is really disgusting is that this 14 year old girl is being allowed to give up when life gets a little rough. So the foreclosure and eviction was avoided, great. So why is this child not back in school if her symptoms are gone? If she's well enough to go to the movies, Franklin Mills, and have her friends over for salsa dancing then there is no excuse for her to not be in school!”