The Mortgage & Housing Crisis

My son was born when I was 15. I had been sexually abused by my brother from age 3 or 4, the abuse is some of my earliest memories. I became pregnant as a result of the repeated abuse and was terrified of telling my parents. I waited until 2 weeks before he was born and at that point, a counselor at my High School figured out that I was pregnant and told them for me. My father beat me with a leather belt for not divulging the name of the father. I had already decided that no one could know because I couldn't let my baby grow up with that hanging over his head. My brother left Maryland shortly after Justin was born and no one heard from him for almost 20 years. I raised Justin with a little help from my parents, but basically as a teenage and then a twenty-something single parent with no child support whatsoever. I had ever planed on telling Justin the ttruth, but as time went on, and he reached his teens, he became angrier and angrier with me that I "could not" tell him who his father was. I had realized that I couldn't tell him that this person had died, because he would want to meet their family, I couldn't say he didn't want kids......or that I hadn't told the father. Any of those answers woud have sent Justin on a wild goose chase. He began calling me names, like "slut" and "whore" because I couldn't remember who I had sex with that produced him. I finally realized I was going to have to tell him the truth to save our relationship. I had kept this secret for 20 years to protect him and he was treating me as I was the terrible person. I waited until November of 2006, just before he turned 18 and I went to the police and told them my story. They located my brother in Florida, sent a detective down to meet with the Florida detective and to go interview my brother. He tried denying everything, but they served him with a DNA search warrant and then he tried to come up with scenarios such as "I impregnated myself with his sperm I found in a condom". He was indicted by the grand jury and charged with rape and incest. The trial was held in November of 2007 and he made a plea bargain and will be sentenced April 30, 2008. My mother is not speaking to me because she said I should not have divulged this at all, much less go to the police. Her position is that everyone makes mistakes and why should he be punished for something that happened 20 years ago. I was floored by her statements. Not only has she not seen or heard from him, her own son, in 20 years, how could she expect me to continue to allow my son to have such terrible thoughts about me and let our relationship be irreparably damaged ? And what about justice for me ? Isn't 20 years long enough to wait ? Her reaction was the straw that broke the camels back. I thought I could handle this as easily as I had done for the last 20 years, but I couldn't. I was in the middle of building my own home, finally. I did it all by myself. I used all my savings and took out a construction loan for the rest and it took me 3 years, but I did it. and now I'm going to lose it all. The last year has been so very difficult for me with all the hearings and the attitude of my mother and my business got slower and slower due to the real estate market and I have now found myself in a position where I need to refinance out of my construction loan and I can't due to the mortgage crisis. I am self-employed and have poor credit thanks to a divorce. But my house appraised for $700K and I only need to borrow $400K, so the loan to value is good, I have a lot of equity. I even have my father willing to cosign who has good credit. But no one will refinance me in this market and I am going to lose my home that is part of the family farm and can never be replaced. Had I known what a toll this was going to take on me, that it would slow me down in building and keep me from being able to get out and market my business when the industry slowed down, maybe I would have taken my mom's advice and just never told. If I had just gotten it built faster I wouldn't be in this position. He isn't even going to have to go to jail according to the plea bargain. House arrest. At least he'll have a house to serve it in. He wins again and I end up the loser all over again.