The current economic downturn may take years to level out, predicts a local analyst, but in the short term, over-extended homeowners have some new options to protect their properties.

Sebastopol journalist  Steve  Pizzo was a co-author of this critically acclaimed expose of the savings and loan scandals of the early 1990s. Today's economic woes are sometimes described as a meltdown, a metaphor that he says is disturbingly accurate.