 "Photo: Brent Harris")
 "Photo: Brent Harris")
After being laid off in February, Jesse Tarin started searching for work closer to home.
His former employer, CUNA Mutual Insurance, was headquartered in Madison, Wis., but he had been posted as a CUNA risk manager in San Antonio, where he lived with his wife and three daughters.
"Competing with 20 other people who got laid off, I couldn't find anything in San Antonio," Tarin said.
While he wasn't able to find work in town, work found him elsewhere.
"I was offered an opportunity to work (as an auditor) for the government," he said, a job that immediately relocated him to Little Rock, Ark., where he now works for the National Credit Union Administration.
Tarin, who is one of thousands of San Antonians coping with the worst national economy since the Great Depression, said the most difficult thing about the new job is not being able to spend time with his family.
"I get to see them once a month, if I get lucky," Tarin said.
Tarin's eldest daughter, Chelsae Tarin, said it's difficult economically and emotionally without a father around.
"We need our dad to talk to, to toughen us up and protect us," she said.
Chelsae, 17, and her sisters have made quite a few adjustments, eating out less and going straight home from school.
"We have to watch what we spend now," she said.
Going out for a morning jog was Jesse Tarin's daily routine. His youngest daughter, 7-year-old Jasmine, usually tagged along.
"Even though he's gone, she still gets up early every morning," Chelsae said.
To make living arrangements easier, the family has considered moving closer to Tarin's business.
"We're thinking about waiting another year if my dad can't find a job in San Antonio," Chelsae said.
But Chelsae has her heart set on graduating from Health Careers High School in the Class of 2011.
"San Antonio's my home and I can't imagine leaving it," she said.
When she's old enough, Chelsae says she wants to get a part-time job on the weekends to help her parents.
The Tarins are not alone. Many San Antonians are worried about losing their homes and even real estate agents are worried about losing their jobs.
"You worry about not having enough clients," said Debbie Leffler, a broker owner at The Mark of Real Estate agency.
The number of foreclosures is increasing dramatically and Leffler believes that's being caused by a combination of economic problems.
"Nobody means to get behind (on mortgage payments), but they just do," Leffler said about people who are at risk of losing their homes.
In the past year, Leffler has dealt with about seven or eight homes that are at risk of foreclosure. Most home foreclosures are resolved by what are known as short sales in which the mortgage company usually sells the homes at drastically reduced prices.
Though the seller loses money, short sales help dispose of houses more quickly than usual.
In June 2008, 928 houses were foreclosed in Bexar County, and only 354 of them were actually sold at auction. In June 2009, 1,266 homes were foreclosed, with only 317 sold at auction.
Auctions take place on the San Antonio County Courthouse steps the first Tuesday of every month.
"With the new president (Barack Obama), it was supposed to be easier, but I haven't found it to be," Leffler said about federal initiatives to help struggling mortgage holders.
Kathy Aberthal, a real estate agent at Exit Realty North West, says the purchase of cheaper foreclosed homes helps keep the market active.
Even so, she said, "There seems to be more people renting than buying."
Part of Aberthal's job is to find rental homes for foreclosure victims.
"When you have foreclosures, it's sad because they don't have money to pay bills," she said. "It gets very stressful."
In hard times, Aberthal tries to support and encourage people in grief.
"It's not the end of the world," she said. "It's a time for opportunity to learn and grow … to reinvent themselves."
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