Publication: The Washington Post
Author: Brigid Schulte
Date: August 18, 2009
Article Excerpt:
After Debbie Jenkins got sick, couldn’t work and lost two houses to foreclosure, after she burned through her savings, moved into an unheated garage in Crofton and still found herself six months behind on rent, she looked around for something to sell to help pay for the bologna and 60-cent cans of dollar-store vegetables that she, her daughter and three grandchildren live on.
She thought of her jewelry. But when she looked on Internet sales sites, she found more than 16,000 listings. She and her daughter held yard sales and netted $56. Then, somewhere in the boxes of judgments and collection notices piled around her garage home, she hit upon her truly final asset: the deed to a grassy plot of earth in Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Prince George’s County, the spot where she once planned to spend eternity.