There was a time when Simeon Ferguson grew tomatoes and callaloo leaves in the garden behind his three-story brownstone in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the home he has owned since 1975. He would give out the excess harvest to friends and neighbors, according to his daughter, and cook up the rest. Ferguson, 86, is now retired, after working for more than 20 years as a chef at Long Island College Hospital. But his remaining years of rest and relaxation are facing a major obstacle \’e2\’80\rdblquote his home is at risk of foreclosure.

In early 2006, Michael Bocelli, a mortgage broker with the Long Island-based Global Financial Inc., sold Ferguson a new $450,000 option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM ) that was fairly guaranteed to put his house in foreclosure, according to Ferguson\’e2\’80\’99s attorney. His fixed-rate 30-year mortgage at 5.95 percent interest was refinanced into a complex subprime mortgage that offered him a teaser interest rate of 1 percent \’e2\’80\rdblquote which lasted all of six weeks before jumping to 7 percent, and eventually, higher.