Last week, police visited the home of Addie Polk to deliver some bad news: they were there to escort the 90-year-old woman from her $28,000 home in Akron, Ohio, where the widow had lived for nearly 40 years. The price was set after Fannie Mae filed for its foreclosure, and Polk, who lives on a pension, had nowhere to go. So she shot herself in the chest.

In a surprisingly humane response, Fannie Mae announced it would forgive Polk's mortgage and allow her to return home -- provided she recovers.

Some haven't been so lucky. The mortgage crisis in the US has resulted in numerous suicides, including a retired couple in Oregon and a 53-year-old woman in Massachusetts. The latter faxed her mortgage company: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead."

This poem was penned shortly after Polk's suicidal protest by O Anna Niemus:

22 Adele Polk

Sheriff's deputies in Summit County, Ohio, acting as the emissaries of billionaire
bankers from Firth Third Bank, National City, Citi Bank,
JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and others have
thrown many people's possessions onto the curb where
their divided lots are scavenged through.

When yesterday they came to foreclose the home of 90 year old
Adele Polk. Inside she shot herself.

God heal you Adele, and dismantle the megathief banks
and investment houses.

[Image: Brendel via Wikimedia Commons]