ONE tried to kill herself just as law officers were going to evict her, the other sent a chilling a note to the bank which was taking her house: By the time you read this note, I'll be dead.

Councillors say that the financial hurricane many Americans are facing is taking a tragic emotional toll.

Ms Addie Polk, 90, was about to be kicked out of her home, one that she and her late husband had been living in since 1970, reported AP.

As the sheriff's deputies arrived, there were loud noises coming from inside.

Neighbour Robert Dillon, 62, used a ladder to enter a second-story bathroom window of her home.

'I was calling her name as I went in, and she wasn't responding,' he told CNN.

He found her lying on a bed, and he could see she was breathing. He also noticed a long-barrelled handgun on the bed, but thought she just had it there for protection. He touched her on the shoulder.

'Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk must have shot herself,' he said.

Mr Dillon hurried downstairs and let the deputies in.

He said they told him they found Ms Polk's car keys, pocketbook and life insurance policy laid out neatly where they could be found, suggesting that she intended to kill herself.

Many like her

'There's a lot of people like Miss Polk right now. That's the sad thing about it,' said Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville.

Mr Sommerville, who had met Ms Polk before and rushed to the scene when contacted by police, said 'They might not be as old as her, some could be as old as her. This is just a major problem.'

In 2004, Ms Polk took out a 30-year, 6.4 per cent mortgage for about US$46,000 ($67,000) with a Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The same day, she also took out about US$11,400 line of credit.

Over the next couple of years, Ms Polk missed payments on the 101-year-old home. In 2007, mortgage finance company Fannie Mae (the same one that the US government bailed out) assumed the mortgage and later filed for foreclosure.

Deputies had tried to serve Ms Polk's eviction notice more than 30 times before Wednesday's incident, Mr Sommerville said. She never came to the door, but the notes the deputies left would always disappear, so they knew she was inside and active, he said.

Fortunately, now Fannie Mae said it is forgiving the mortgage debt.

It announced on Friday that it would dismiss its foreclosure action and allow her to return to her home, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

'Just given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate,' Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith told Associated Press.

Other cases did not have a happy ending.

'By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead,' said a note faxed by a 53-year-old mother to her mortgage company in June.

Ms Carlene Balderrama's house was up for auction.

The company notified police of the message less than an hour and a half before the home was to go on the auction block.

By the time officers arrived at her home, they found she had fatally shot herself with her husband's rifle.

'It has a lot of people talking, because there are a lot of homes in foreclosure here,' Police chief Raymond O'Berg told ABCNews.com. 'It's just a tragedy. Then again, someone told me that these financial stresses are tough.'

Crisis hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from frantic homeowners.

The American Psychological Association (APA) and other mental-health groups are publishing tips on how to handle the emotional stress triggered by the real estate meltdown.

Drinking and domestic violence

Psychologists say they're seeing more drinking, domestic violence and marital problems linked to mortgage concerns - as well as children trying to cope with extreme anxiety when their families are forced to move, reported USA Today.

'They're depressed, anxious. It's affected marriages, relationships,' said Mr Richard Chaifetz, CEO of ComPsych, a Chicago-based employee-assistance firm that is counselling homeowners over mortgage fears.

Many other homeowners are at risk of less-severe, but still significant, psychological distress: One in seven homeowners worry that they won't be able to make their mortgage payments on time over the next six months, according to an April Associated Press-AOL Money & Finance poll, and more than one-quarter fear their home will decline in value during the next two years.

'Suicides are very much tied to the economy,' said Ms Kathleen Hall, founder and CEO of The Stress Institute in Atlanta. 'It's a public-health issue.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on October 08, 2008.