Woman Attempts Suicide After Facing Eviction From Home

This week, a 90 year-old woman in Ohio shot herself. The shot was not fatal, the reason was that she was facing eviction from her home of 38 years. Addie Polk was found by police in her home with a self inflicted gun shot wound in her shoulder. Deputies have given Polk's eviction notice 30 times before she shot herself. She could not keep up with the mortgage of her modest single family home. The article concluded by saying "Home foreclosure rates are at record highs in the United States, in many cases because buyers adjustable interest rates could not keep up with sharp increases in monthly payments. The foreclosure crisis has sparked wider housing market downturn and is at the heart of the U.S. financial crisis." 

This specific example really made me realize the perilous times we are living in. I have never really understood the stock market, the importance of a lot of what is said on the news about the financial crisis is hard for me to grasp. However, when I saw how the crisis was affecting one person it suddenly became a lot more real. The crisis is going to hit those living on fixed income the hardest. It is much more difficult to them to just "ride it out". Suicide rates in the United States were highest during the Depression, this current economic crisis has already caused at least one attempt at suicide. Lets hope our current  and new leaders find a solution to the current financial crisis.