(Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Jocelyn Foreman was full of nervous energy and dread.
It was a crisp morning in early March. She arrived at the Pleasant Hill Community Center to find a handful of men and women in a semicircle outside the sandstone-colored building, clutching folders and holding cell phones.
They were there for a foreclosure auction, poised to bid on the house that Foreman rents: a single-story, 1,500-square-foot tract home in Pinole. It’s a simple home, set back from the street, with a steep sloping backyard, worn carpets and a roof that leaks when it rains.
A man with a clipboard started the bidding at $175,000. A woman in a maroon sweatshirt and another man offered competing bids. First $176,000. Then $177,000. Then $180,000.