What It's Like to Lose a Home

By now, everyone knows the dismal facts on foreclosure: Almost 8 million families are behind in their mortgage payments, and more than 8 million are expected to lose their homes over the next four years.

Sobering, indeed. But to read the testimony behind these figures is shattering: The mother who sank all of her savings into a dream house and walked away with nothing; the father, forced to move into a far-away rental, who now drives an hour each night to retrieve his son from daycare.

Foreclosure has hit Latinos in disproportionate numbers (an estimated 400,000 are believed to have lost their homes in 2009 alone) so last week the National Council of La Raza published a report focusing on their experience. For those anticipating a dry recitation of facts and figures, “The Foreclosure Generation” will be a shocker.

Here, speak Latino families from Texas, Georgia, Florida, California and Michigan, reeling from dislocation and disillusionment as they describe layoffs, shattered dreams and banks that refused to help.

“…the house that you’ve been wanting for your life. You know, you – that's something you want to accomplish and you accomplished it, and you put all your money into it, that you worked hard for and commuted every day for five years, and set all my money up and to lose it, it was depressing,” said a mother from California.

Among the Latino families profiled, homes generally represented two-thirds of total wealth so home loss rocked their entire economic foundation. Most families reported marital discord, depression and poor school performance for children as a result of foreclosure. Young people, in particular, were deeply affected.

“Did you say goodbye to the house, Grandpa?” a little boy asked his grandfather as the family prepared to move away.

“And I was like, “Yes, I did. I said goodbye to the house.”

Music to Count By

Just in case getting a chunk of $400 billion for local schools and hospitals doesn't motivate you to fill out a U.S. Census questionnaire, how about free music?

The group Voto Latino, which was co-founded by actress Rosario Dawson and works to increase political engagement among young people, offers 25 free downloads from iTunes to anyone who visits the web site BeCountedRepresent.com and pledges to be counted. With selections from Pitbull, Mos Def, Morrissey and Ozomatli, the choices are weighted toward fans of Latino and world music.

The project may have a commercial agenda behind its civic intentions: Census forecasters predict that Latinos -- already the nation's fastest-growing minority group -- will make up 16 percent of the U.S. population when all the data is counted.

Marketers, no doubt, will take note. But in the meantime, enjoy the tunes.

With Idealism, and Homework, Kids Help Chicago Elections

On Tuesday, more than 2,000 Chicago students, many of whom are not old enough to vote, nonetheless hit the polls, acting as election judges in the Windy City's important primary election.

They brought their homework -- and idealism -- and in some cases taught an important lesson to older judges who had been doing the job for years.

Mikva Challenge, an organization that works to improve civic engagement among youth, recruited and trained the students. Now, in the program's 10th year, the gig has grown so popular that Mikva kids comprise almost 20 percent of the city's pool of eligible election judges.

That is not to say the job is without its rough spots.

"There was an older judge who did not want our student judge to have her homework out on the table," said Mikva staffer Cristina Perez, 22, who noted that the teens are allowed to do schoolwork. "So we train the students to remind people that they get the same pay, the same training and the same information as every other judge."

Some may grumble at the youthful faces, but officials at the Board of Elections have come to see their value. "It really clicked when touch-screen voting came in," Perez said. "The students made that transition much smoother and that's when people realized having young people in the polling place who are tech savvy is really an asset."

The main point, say Mikva organizers, is to remind youth (not to mention adults) that being too young to vote does not mean kids are too young to participate in the political process.

One student, 18-year-old James Alford, spoke about his experience on Chicago radio:

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