At Resolve Legal, we only represent individual consumer debtors. As consumer bankruptcy lawyers, we see the distress the mortgage mess has brought to homeowners up close every day. From this vantage point, it’s quite clear that your federal government is not helping you, it’s looking out for financial institutions and Wall Street.

Now, our economy does in fact depend on those banks and other financial institutions. But it also depends on those of us who are making our mortgage payments. As we have seen in the last few weeks, when homeowners can’t pay their mortgages, the system does not work. In general, the people that come to see us who are in trouble with their house payment WANT to pay, they simply cannot. Nothing in the plans that are being considered in Washington will fix this problem and until homeowners are given some tools to help them make those mortgage payments, the whole system will continue to flounder.

A bankruptcy filing can give a homeowner a chance to catch their breath and catch up on their payments. But it is a shame, really, that the lenders cannot do a better job of helping homeowners who want to pay outside the bankruptcy system. In Seattle, at least, we are seeing homeowners who have simply been unable to find anyone at their mortgage company who can help them. And with the demise of Washington Mutual, that situation is sure to get worse.

Over the next few days, I think we will see some sort of legislation come from Washington, despite the fact that most of us taxpayers are opposed to the plans. What remains to be seen is whether the legislation will include any relief for those of us at the bottom of this pyramid.