wearmanyhats

In 1924, a middle aged man bought a small house for his mother in a sneeze of a town in mid central Minnesota.  After she passed away in 1929, the man decided to rent out the house because the stock market fall had eroded the value of the home.  Banks were failing, fortunes were being lost, and the man thought it prudent to rent out the home.

What he didn’t know was that the next decade would later become known as the Great Depression, that the financial landscape would become void of any money, and the decade would redefine Americans as never before. A whole generation would become suspicious of banks, tight with money because they remembered a time when money was darned hard to get.  All he knew was that he was renting it for $2 a month.

Who would have thought that $2 a month was more than they could muster.  No one had any money back then, so the man was faced with trying to decide whether to throw the people out or let them stay there just so someone was living in there.  In the end, he let them stay, mindful that a house needed to be lived in to not develop problems.  An empty house invited vagrants, and there were plenty of those around.

Fast forward to another town in 2009, and a family sits in a trailer, unable to pay the rent on the land they are renting. One has lost her job, the husband, a trucker, has not had work on his contract all month.  The landowner this time is the granddaughter of the man who had let his house for free so many years earlier. Once again the choice needs to be made: to force out the tenants or let them stay.

This problem is not unique.  All around the United States, people are not just losing their homes, but they are suddenly unable to make their rent payments, credit card payments, or pay for their cars.  Will apartment owners or those who have spent a lifetime renting out single family homes  be faced with someday deciding whether to allow people to stay there rent free?

Eviction seemed a clear cut choice to the current landowner, until she spoke about it to her father, and brother, who both urged her to show her renters mercy.  “These are tough times,”  said her father.  “They might just get themselves caught up before too long, and you’ll be glad someone’s living out there.”

Her brother, in a separate conversation, took the same point of view.  “You know, a couple of months might make all the world of difference in their life.  You might want to just wait it out.”

What will the next decade bring for her this time?  Will it be a virtual desert of no money?  Will it be a blip in time, or a redefining of a generation?  The story is yet to be written.