Senators Merkley and Wyden: Gotta Love’em

We’ve all  become heartily sick of watching the legislative shenanigans in Washington. Article after article reminds us that the American People are Very Unhappy With Congress. And that’s true. I am unhappy with Congress.

I am unhappy with a lot of people these days. I am unhappy with WellsFargo Mortgage, to whom I have been submitting financial information for nearly a year in the increasingly dim hope that they will actually modify my mortgage.

I am unhappy with my credit card companies, who raised interest rates even though I was more than current and well below my limits and, when that became illegal, began assessing a higher “base rate” on my existing balance, and then added usage as well as non-usage fees, and then late fees for the payment they demanded I miss before I became eligible for even the inadequate “hardship plan” on offer. When I set up a payment plan one company opted to withdraw the payment not from the checking account designated on all the paperwork, but from my savings account,which was not a checking account, to which I had NEVER provided them the numbers, and which was, in any case, pretty spartan. When the payment didn’t go through they assessed “returned payment fees,” and the bank assessed overdraft charges. They reversed them for me when I complained, but still…

I am unhappy with my state, which has raised my property taxes AND my assessed property value, even though I am reliably informed that my property value has tanked along with everyone else’s.

I am unhappy with my insurance company, which has raised my home insurance rates because, hey, my assessed value went up.

And I am unhappy with my mortgage company AGAIN because not only have they refused to respond to my repeated financial re-filings (except by demanding yet MORE financial updates), but they have now raised my supposedly fixed-rate mortgage payment because my insurance has gone up. My insurance went up about two dollars a month and my mortgage payment is going up $25 a month, but never mind.

So I’m unhappy with a lot of people. But I am NOT unhappy with my senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden. I love them. I would practically have a baby for them. I will definitely vote for them again, unless they go crazy and screw things up between us. But I really don’t see that happening. Here’s why. They called me. To be fair, I wrote one and called the other first, so it wasn’t like I was playing “hard to get,” but the fact remains that I contacted their offices. And I got answers.

The thing about what’s happening right now is that people like me are being hit from all sides. Companies we bailed out have repaid our generosity by screwing us to the wall at every opportunity. It’s like being sent through a car wash without a car. It hurts, and it’s scary, and it hits you all over, and when even the very measures (like mortgage modifications) that are supposed to be for people like me are denied not by rejection, but simply by being allowed to age on someone’s desk there is a deep, corroding, despair that sets in. It set in for me.

I sat with my bills, and I looked at my income, and I realized that I had to have help. Thing is, everybody’s pretty much in the same boat. We’re all struggling. It feels like we’re living in that Yeats poem–the one that talks about the center failing to hold, and ends by wondering what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.

I went to a consumer credit counselor. He looked at the same numbers I was looking at and told me my only realistic option was bankruptcy. I came home feeling like the car wash had won.

In desperation, I emailed Senator Merkley, and then I found Senator Wyden’s office telephone number. I picked up the phone and dialed. I figured I had nothing to lose. I really didn’t expect anything beyond a form response about how they were very very busy working very very hard for Oregonians everywhere, and a reminder that they’d appreciate my vote, and possibly a donation.

I was wrong. The woman who answered the telephone at Senator Wyden’s office listened to my story. She sympathized. She got my email address. She emailed me a list of local resources. She also told me that the people in Senator Wyden’s office are hearing stories like mine every day. She included a form for me to sign and return if I thought it might be helpful to have the Senator send a few letters or make a few calls on my behalf. She gave me her name–it was Jerusha–and urged me to call back and let her know how things were going, and if I needed their help.

I hung up feeling immensely better. The next day I got a call from Senator Merkley’s office. The woman was equally sympathetic, and equally prepared to offer help. Because I was already working with Senator Wyden’s office I thanked her, but let her off the hook. She also asked that I call back if I needed anything.

The day after that Jerusha from Senator Wyden’s office called again, checking on how things were going. I updated her (my mortgage broker believes that she’s discovered the Secret Formula which determines acceptance or rejection; I’m still waiting to hear). I have no idea if the Secret Formula is actually the key to mortgage acceptance or the recipe for Colonel Sanders’ crispy chicken. I hope the mortgage goes through. I am still hoping to find a way to avoid bankruptcy. Things are still hard.

But if the modificationt doesn’t go through, if the credit card companies refuse to deal with me in a meaningful way, I have two senators in Washington are waiting to help not because I am unique or special, but because they understand that we here at home need more than just their work in the Legislature and the suggestion that we bootstrap ourselves to success. We need help navigating through the mess in which we all find ourselves. And they’re giving it–a listening ear followed up by real, concrete, tangible, practical help. My senators call me back. And I love them for it.

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