Youngstown  Where we had four ACORN doorknocking teams in Pittsburgh, we only had two in Youngstown, Ohio, but that seemed right since with hardly 70,000 inhabitants now, Youngstown was less than one-fifth the size of Pittsburgh. Putting the lists together at the Youngstown Public Library and the second-chance Café Augustine, run by the Catholic Diocese in space there, our list of homes with various forms of contract land purchases kept growing like weeds. We had too many choices and too little time. Focusing our work just on Vision Property Management, which had been the source of so many complaints in Pittsburgh, we found ourselves with more listings in Youngstown that we had in all of Allegheny Count which dwarfed its size. We had a tiger by the tail it seemed.

Youngstown people are nice. We were met with curiosity and courtesy everywhere. Unfortunately in talking with Vision customers, hoping to be homebuyers, we were also met with confusion and uncertainty from everyone when it came to understanding their contracts with Vision. Many of the stories resembled each other, but none of them were the same. What we thought we understood from our many visits in Pittsburgh was often modified and amended in ways both subtle and significant in the almost twenty doors we visited in Youngstown. Mostly, people hoped they understood their contracts, but they could rarely put their fingers on them while we visited, so we were all like the blind men touching the elephant and trying to describe it to each other.

The most poignant visit was with a man who did have his contract, was convinced that he would have paid off Vision in seven years and would own his own home outright, and was in shock and disbelief as our team worked with him paragraph to paragraph to show him that after paying almost $20,000 in 7-years he would own nothing, but the right to make three choices that Vision offered at that juncture. Since the company was only counting a small part of his monthly payment towards the purchase price, he could make a balloon payment of $15,000 or so and get the deed, which he said was an impossibility for his income and credit. In a second choice, he could walk away from the house and lose his equity, down payment, and the money and labor he had already sunk into repairs. Or, in a final choice, he could keep paying on the same basis for another 15 or 20 years hoping to still own the house. This isn’t a lady or the tiger choice, but more like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. The wannabe homeowner was near tears and our team had to try to put a smile on the horrible face of Vision Property Management, not as an act of organizing, but as a simple act of humanity.

As we debriefed at the end of our day on the doors, we found ourselves grabbing at straws. One woman told us she had muscled Vision into an agreement that she would own the house in six years. We hoped she was right, but didn’t see the contract. Another man was convinced he could mortgage the house after his seven years. We hoped with him that there would be an oasis springing up soon in this credit desert. One man told of having been given a couple of weeks to catch up on his payments when he forgot one to prevent eviction. Another man told us he was in this Vision rent-to-own property for the last year after his previous Vision contract had been demolished, and Vision had let him choose from where to try again from their website. A woman said she was given three months to catch up on her payments once.

We found ourselves looking for light at the end of this terrible Vision tunnel of heartbreak. As horrid and predatory as the Vision contracts seemed, the company also seemed hesitant to let someone spit their hooks. If people were able to organize, hear each other’s stories, and take action, they just might be able to force Vision to change their contracts and terms. If some people could force small concessions with their anger, if they came together to fight in the campaign, they might be able to force Vision to buy into their vision of themselves as homeowners, rather than as simple fodder for the company’s exploitation.