A report from USA Today. "In a stealth aftershock of the Great Recession, nearly 100,000 loans that allowed senior citizens to tap into their home equity have failed, blindsiding elderly borrowers and their families and dragging down property values in their neighborhoods. Leroy Roebuck, 86, rode the bus his entire career to a nearby curtain manufacturer. When he needed to make home repairs, he turned to reverse mortgages after seeing an ad on television."

"Roebuck’s first foreclosure notice came in the mail six years ago, and he is still fighting to hold on to the brick walk-up he bought from his parents in 1970, living in it through a special health exemption to foreclosure. 'I told my son, ‘Never. They ain’t gonna take this house,' Roebuck said. 'I’ll go to the deep blue sea, they’re not going to take this house.'"

"Stephanie Moulton, associate professor of public policy at Ohio State University, said cash-strapped minority borrowers were easy targets for 'bad apple' reverse mortgage lenders capitalizing on a market shunned by traditional lenders. 'These areas had demand, and they couldn’t access credit any other way,' she said."

"Leroy Roebuck’s home was appraised at $112,000 in 2008. That allowed him to take out up to $83,000 in equity. By the time he was solicited for a second reverse mortgage, an appraiser said it was worth $241,000, allowing him up to $163,000 more. He borrowed $102,000 in all. The 104-year-old house near Temple University is worth far less today, about $165,000."

"Each foreclosure depresses home values within about 600 feet by 1%, according to a study in 2006 in the journal Housing Studies. As foreclosures mount, the study says, that figure compounds. Five foreclosures in a few city blocks means a 5% loss for every neighbor."

The Desert Sun in California. "Edmund Dantez de Guerrero, 82, had planned to live out his days in the Southern California home he inherited from his parents, surrounded by his paintings and in the company of his dog, Angus. But in 2018, Dantez de Guerrero received a notice. It said the house, a 1,600-square-foot dwelling hidden behind thick brush in the Dream Homes neighborhood of Cathedral City, could be sold from under his feet."

"Thirteen years earlier, Dantez de Guerrero had taken out a reverse mortgage on the property. The mortgage, which is only accessible to homeowners 62 and older, allowed him to borrow against the value of his house, gaining cash in exchange for giving up home equity."

"As long as he continued paying his property taxes and insurance, and maintained the home, he could remain in Cathedral City for the rest of his life. The loan would only come due if he moved out of his house, died or defaulted."

"But Dantez de Guerrero, who suffers from severe scoliosis and neuropathy that stops him from working, fell $10,000 behind on his taxes. For a while, he said, his mortgage servicer covered the missed payments. In January 2018, Dantez de Guerrero learned that his loan was in default and that a trustee planned to auction off his home to the highest bidder instead."

"A USA TODAY review of government foreclosure data between 2013 and 2017 found that nearly 100,000 reverse mortgage loans have failed, burdening elderly borrowers and their families and causing property values in their neighborhoods to crater. Among the hardest hit borrowers are people living near the poverty line in pockets of Chicago, Baltimore, Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia."

"In California, the loans were unusually likely to end in foreclosure in pockets of the Inland Empire, the region of Southern California where Dantez de Guerrero lives. Lenders foreclosed on seniors living in the Inland Empire, which spans Riverside and San Bernardino counties, at two to three times the national average. Reverse mortgage foreclosures were as high as 10 times the national average in Joshua Tree's 92252 ZIP code, one of the worst-hit neighborhoods."

"Marlan McClanahan, who works for the Fair Housing Council of Riverside County, a nonprofit organization that helps people avoid foreclosure, advises as many as 100 reverse mortgage borrowers a year. Looking at a list of communities that have experienced reverse mortgage foreclosures, McClanahan recognized some places that were also buffeted by the foreclosure wave of more than a decade ago, when the Riverside metro area had one of the highest rates of conventional home loan foreclosure in the country, following the collapse of the housing market."

"''It’s alarming,' he said. 'At the same time, it’s like history is repeating itself.'"

"Juan De Lara, a geographer at the University of Southern California who studies the Inland Empire, said it appears as if the mortgage lending industry transitioned from targeting one kind of household for subprime loans to targeting a different segment of the population — seniors — for reverse mortgages."

"'The same kind of predatory lending going on in subprime then switched over to seniors, another population that was vulnerable because of their fixed incomes,' he said."