90-year-old Foreclosure Victim Shoots Herself as she is about to be Evicted from her Home

This is a terrible story. I hope this woman makes it and can tell her story at and future hearings and investigations to be held by regulators and legislators.

At the age of 90, Addie Polk found herself in foreclosure this week; about to be forced from the home she's lived in for nearly 40 years.

So, with a gun in her hand, the Akron widow apparently shot herself in the chest Wednesday afternoon as deputies were knocking on her door with eviction papers in hand.

While a nation reels in financial crisis from years of mortgage abuse, Polk is recovering at Akron General Medical Center, awaiting word on where she will live when she's released.

Meanwhile, city leaders say Polk has become Akron's ''poster child'' for victims of predatory lenders.

''I think this is a case where we need to step in and help this lady if she is so desperate to shoot herself because she can't pay her mortgage,'' Akron Councilman Marco Sommerville said.

Court records show Polk took out a 30-year, 6.375 percent mortgage just four years ago for $45,620 with a Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls. She took out a line of credit that same day for $11,380.

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