New Haven Independent

Delgado is a seasonal worker with the city’s parks and rec department, as is his wife. Since 2001 they’ve owned a sweet little yellow house at the corner of Willis and Sherman in Newhallville. He plants roses in the front yard.

Delgado watched from inside the house Saturday as his home was auctioned off.

When Delgado was laid off from an off-the-books job that supplemented his income about a year ago, he struggled to make the $1,270 monthly mortgage payments.

He earned extra money using his pick-up to clean yards and garages and collect scrap metal, which he then sold. The price of the scrap metal he could sell began to drop; the odd jobs became fewer. He fell further and further behind.

Then the Wells Fargo bank began to call him from California to make what they said was a deal.

“They wanted me to pay them $3,500 in a lump payment, and then $1,500 a month, up from the $1,270. Now even if I can find the $3,500, where am I going to get the $1,500 a month!”

So, beginning at around 10:50 a.m. Saturday, Delgado watched silently from the inside of the house as the court-appointed attorney Todd Sobieraj conducted a foreclosure auction on the sidewalk just in front of his roses.

By 10:59 no one had showed up. That didn’t surprise Sobieraj. Last week he had presided at a foreclosure on Davis Street in Westville. No one showed up there either, a sign of the times.

That also was a nice house on a quiet street. But given the steep economic downturn, not even the flippers and re-habbers who might usually show were in evidence.

At 11 a.m. sharp, Sobieraj announced the Well Fargo bank’s bid on Pablo Delgado’s house: $106,250. Just then Laurence Chambers, of Connecticut Realty Partners, pulled up in his car. He and colleagues had a certified check for $14,500, 10 percent of the appraised $145,000 value of the house.

Would they like to make a higher offer? They were willing to go up to $50,000. But they were not willing to exceed the bank’s bid.

Wells Fargo had won the auction. As the participants scurried to their cars to fell the persistent rain, arguably the most important player finally emerged out onto his porch wearing a brown and battered City of New Haven baseball cap.

Delgado, who’s 50, and his wife have three little kids who go to New Haven schools. He seemed eager to unburden himself.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said. “Now at least I can breathe free. And I’m not alone either.

“Just look down the block.”

Indeed, at least four other homes on Willis had for- sale signs. “The guy on the next street lost his house, two of them.”

Delgado said he tried to sell his house for some time, ever since his income declined. “But no one wants to buy it. I fell behind in the payments, yes, but I told the bank, that guy in California, the house has equity. It has $50,000 in equity. Use that to make my payments! He said it didn’t work that way.

“But where am I going to come up with $1,500 a month? If I make the deal with them, a month or two from now, I’m in the hole again. It’s my income. I’ll be OK. Don’t worry about me. I’ve already rented a room nearby for $500 a month. I can afford that, and my wife and kids will be OK. With relatives.”

“Now I can breathe,” he repeated and moved his hand to his throat, a gesture of choking or hanging to capture his emotional state of the previous months running up to Saturday morning.

As he took a reporter through the house, which he bought in 2000 for $25,000, he grew philosophical. “I don’t need fantasies and I’m not alone. People with a lot of money lose it, and I have less, so maybe it’s less that I’m losing.” He said he could have made the lump sum payment that Wells Fargo asked for, that he indeed had been putting some money away in the bank for his dream.

What dream is that?

“I’m saving, and when things get better, I’ll have $10,000 in the bank.” He said he already had $7,000, but that was to be for the dream, not Wells Fargo. “One day I go to Florida and buy a trailer for $10,000 and live there. Miami. They’re more hard hit there and in California than in Connecticut,” he said. “For $10,000 I can get something nice.”

Delgado has been in New Haven since 1985. When his 120 day-per-year parks assignment finished in 2007, a friend arranged for him to do a job in Georgia. He worked there for two months. “He gave me $5,000. And what did I have to do with the money? Give it right to the bank. No, I can’t keep doing that.”

“So don’t worry about Pablo,” he continued, as if making his case to a reporter. “Bosses I work for, people making $50,000, they lost their jobs too. People with millions, lost millions. Everyone is losing, people white, black, blue. They send it all to the friggin’ oil companies. The street’s nice, the neighbors are nice, too. But, no, the bottom line is $1,500 a month! No. I don’t want this house any more. I feel free. One day I’ll be in Key West.”

He showed a reporter the various baskets of recently washed laundry his wife had prepared and lined up neatly in the living room beside the darkened hallway. “You see, we’re getting to move already. Don’t worry about me.”

The phone rang. It was a friend who had located a customer who wanted his yard cleared. Delgado had to go to work.

Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

• Next-Door Foreclosures, 53 Years Apart
• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
• Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
• In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
• Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”

To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.