You might look at your home as just a, "stupid house", but some people have to work really hard most of their lives just to reach the point where they can purchase a home. In this economic environment, millions are/have lost their careers, investments, wages, and homes, and many aren't ever going to get back to where they were.
That may well be. However if he worked so hard than he could worked hard to look up the word "bankruptcy" which would have kept him in that home for another 9-36 more months.
Or he may have been one of the majority of foreclosures--those who have been in the homes less than 5 years, lured by the rocketing prices and stupid mortgage deduction, when they ought to have been renting. We haven't learned from this crisis to eliminate the perverse deduction, or at least introduce a renter's deduction, so people can make more rational choices absent government distortion of the markets.