They're damn lucky he didn't decide to take a few of them with him.
I fear our society is in an inevitable progression towards a time where both types of outcomes (suicide and homicide) will be much more common. Every public official who is in a position to make these sorts of life-altering decisions needs to read "The Ballad of Carl Drega", by Vin Suprynowicz and to remember that people who feel they have been forced into a situation by those officials where they nothing to lose, have nothing to lose.
All this is overdramatic.
We used to be a nation of doers - our history is full of successful men and women who lost homes and businesses several times over and picked themselves up by their bootstraps and started again.
I personally know people who have lost businesses and been forced to sell their homes at unfavorable prices. They had a couple of bad years, took some lumps, and moved on.
This guy overextended himself financially and tried to get the government to give him a special break to help him out.
You say he had nothing to lose - had he been sane, he would have realized he had plenty to lose.
If he lost his business and his home, he could have gotten a job cutting hair somewhere else or just another job.
He could have cut his losses and moved on, like thousands of his fellow citizens do every day.
The world and the zoning council do not owe him a lifeline out of debt.