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I’m working on a story this weekend about foreclosed homes in this country. In doing some preliminary searching I came across a sad story.

I was reading on the WFMZ.com website about Dan Palchanes, who lost his home to the bank. I also read he bought the home for around $350,000 and the bank sold it at auction for $175,000.

Apparently, he was $12,000 behind on his mortgage payments.

Friggin’ banks. They won’t renegotiate a loan for a lesser amount, but they’ll sell it to somebody else for half the price it was purchased for.

It took deputies with the Bucks County sheriff’s office hours to get Dan to come out. Earlier in the day, he nailed shut doors and windows. He even built a barricade to block his driveway. Before the Sheriff’s Dept. arrived, he told Channel 69 News in a phone call to them that police would have to forcibly remove him.

It ended peacefully and Dan was never charged with anything, even though his excuse was that he was sleeping through most of the calls and knocking on his door. I think most were happy that he didn’t get violent and losing a home is punishment enough.

I feel sympathy for Mr. Palchanes. I had been there and went through it a long time ago (minus the police). I never made a secret of it and actually wear it as a badge of honor. Being able to come back from the loss of everything to owning another home and financial security awaiting me with a couple of retirement accounts, plus some savings.

Not bad, considering I ate off a cardboard box in a rodent infested trailer for 3 months. A friend had to loan me $100 bucks so I could buy a used computer in order for me to start making a side income from the Internet.

I’ve mentioned it on occasion in some of my writings and told many people about it – especially these days, with some I know personally who are on a razors edge surviving, or who have a terrible credit rating. For those, I simply tell them how I made my comeback and what’s necessary in achieving a goal when starting over.

Losing a home is devastating to the ego and it can take years to come back from it. Some never do.

Others, like a man named Truman, go from bankrupt shoe salesman to President of The United States.

I hope Mr. Palchanes will find those who will give him a hand up.

Sadly, he’ll also run into sociopaths along the way. People who think he should be embarrassed and try to make him so.

He shouldn’t be.

I still run into a nut job here and there who think they can embarrass me by broadcasting that which I already make public knowledge and have never tried to hide. In fact, one person who runs a hate blog, placed an image on that blog showing my defaults from 20 years ago. Yep, 20 years back. She was that desperate to find something to use against me.

I’m assuming she thought it was some kind of “dirt” she found. Her own criminal history with convictions of harassment doesn’t make that surprising and considering she actually called my employer with false accusations in an attempt to get me fired tells you more about her than I could put into words. Thankfully, my employer consists of many educated people with psychology degrees and they recognized that she was, well… let’s just leave it at, “not right.”

Mr. Palchanes should be aware that there are people out there with no life, no money, and no employment opportunities. They only have plenty of debt and anger because they live off of credit cards. It makes them crazy and society recognizes them for what they are; pariah.

Stay strong Mr. Palchanes.