—It’s a tough situation, to be sure.—
I’ll agree. One thing about the job front though: Many organizations, in the current climate, are not holding mortgage problems of any sort against an applicant. The exceptions would be jobs in the financial industry or security clearances since one of the reasons for the credit check is to ensure you may not be easily incented to do something nefarious to fix your debt.
“security clearances”
Seems as though that depends too. I know a couple of cleared gov employees that have been given a pass. Who knows if it’ll come back on them later.