Summer Outlook

The Vineyard confidence index is measured in many ways. A quirky economist could devise a matrix involving the number of bulbs and blossoms flowering; the count of sunny days divided by the amount of evening rainfall that makes for happy farmers; the dimensions of freshly painted signs in heralding new or familiar businesses; the frequency of the ferries spilling smiling visitors into Oak Bluffs or Vineyard Haven; the distance of the traffic backups. Most ways you look at it, this has been a promising spring.

We could use a strong summer season, for business owners, wage earners and laborers of all sorts. As in much of the country, the Island has suffered noticeable fallout from the economic recession. Nationwide, one in every four hundred homes faced some form of foreclosure, including scheduled auctions, bank repossessions and default notices — and those sorts of legal notices have been padding Island newspapers over the winter.

The number of Massachusetts homeowners who lost their properties in May more than doubled compared with the same month a year ago, according to data released Wednesday. A Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economist warned not to expect the numbers to drop dramatically any time soon; “There’s a lot of homeowners who owe more than their house is worth,” Paul Willen told the Boston Globe, sending a shiver down many Vineyard mortgage holders’ backs. “There are a lot of accidents waiting to happen.”

For anyone anxious about being one of those accidents, a group of concerned citizens worked throughout the winter to create a two-page guide to help Islanders in financial stress. The group was led by John Pearson, a busy seventy-year-old accountant who took time out during tax season to get this guide out. The idea is to alert people to the free help that is available and best taken early.

The group produced a simple guide, which is available through churches, through Women Empowered (which is not just for women), Island banks, community services, veterans and county offices.

Its advice is direct. Be honest with yourself. Make a budget. Eliminate costly cell phone or cable packages. Pay important things first — food, utilities, mortgage. Best not to use a credit card to pay mortgage debt, but do not miss three mortgage payments. Most importantly, call your bank or lender. Talk to them. Sticking your head in the sand will make it worse.

Some homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosure have found national banks not very responsive to customers asking for debt restructuring (thankfully the Vineyard’s locally owned banks are an exception in this regard). But lately the federal government, directly from the President, has demanded banks speed up the review process for loan modification programs under the Home Affordable Modification Program. So no matter who your lender is, before you get buried, get help. It can be as simple as picking up the great new guide, or calling Women Empowered. Other Islanders stand ready to help those who need it, as ever.