captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. world leaders gathered in washington for an unprecedented meeting on nuclear security. jeffrey brown will have a report, and we'll talk to former secretary of state madeleine albright and former national security adviser brent scowcroft. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill, in tampa, florida, where we've come for a weeklong look at what americans think about their government. tonight's topic: the economic downturn hits home.

first, paul solman reports on florida's real estate crisis, the high cost of foreclosure. >> reporter: do you feel bad? >> absolutely. i cried every night. how can i not pay these people sfwhak this is my home. it's hard. >> reporter: but finally you had no choice. >> no. it's been hard. >> ifill: then, we look at how the sluggish economy is costing individuals their american dreams, and what they want the government to do about it. >> lehrer: plus, ray suarez looks at poland two days after the plane crash that killed 96 people, including the president and other top government officials. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges

like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? every day, chevron invests $62 million in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron.

>> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: president obama played host to dozens of his counterparts today at a world summit. they focused on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. jeffrey brown begins our coverage.

>> brown: it's the largest gathering of world leaders ever held in washington. today president obama greeted dignitaries from 47 countries. on hand for a two-day summit centered on preventing nuclear terrorism. which the president has called the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. the gathering here at washington's convention center is intended to focus the world's attention and push country to take concrete steps to secure the materials that go into making weapons. it's also part of a broader burst of nuclear diplomacy the administration is now engaged in. just last week, the president traveled to prague to sign a new start treaty with russia that would cut each nation's stock pile of nuclear war heads by nearly a third. that came days after the administration unveiled its nuclear posture review. >> this review describes how the united states will reduce the role and numbers of nuclear weapons with a long-term goal of a nuclear free world.

>> brown: yesterday and today the president held a series of bilateral meetings with leaders to address nuclear materials and otherish you'res not necessarily on the summit agenda but on everyone's minds, including, of course, iran. >> there is no obstacle ahead of our scientists when it comes to nuclear science. >> brown: on friday iran's president ahmadinejad unveiled a new generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium. while iran has long maintained its programs are for peaceful nuclear energy generation the obama administration has pushed for tough sanctions to keep it from building nuclear weapons, something that key players, notably china, have resisted. this afternoon president obama and chinese president discussed the issue. according to officials agreed to increase pressure on iran. no details were offered. iran's nuclear ambitions also play into broader fears, some summit attendees have, about a

new arms build-up in the middle east. israel has long been understood to have nuclear weapons though it maintains an official policy of ambiguity, a sticking point in the region. late last week amid reports muslim nations may make israel's nuke program an issue, israeli prime minister announced he would send a deputy in his place. this morning i spoke to egyptian foreign minister about growing nuclear tensions in the mideast. the experts that we have talked to have raised some concerns about a potential new nuclear arms race. even as president obama's talking about a nuclear-free world, the potential for a new arms race in places like the mideast. >> absolutely. >> brown: you worry about that some. >> very much so. so you will have two states, one in the west and the other on the east, iran, israel. you have a large community of

arab states that would feel threatened of the presence of two nuclear states. >> brown: but might that push a nation such... might that push egypt to feel that it must develop its own nuclear weapons? >> we will not announce ourselves on that possibility. now. but we would really feel concerned to have the middle east that is facing that potential, the proliferation. we have to act and to act today. not tomorrow or the day after. >> brown: the president's goal is to act soon at least in securing stores of highly enriched uranium and plutonium found in thousands of sites around the world. in countries like pakistan with its relatively new nuclear arsenal and others that have current or aging nuclear energy programs, even if they don't produce weapons.

the administration announced a deal today with the ukraine to remove its stock pile of uranium enough, it is said, to build several nuclear weapons. gary seemore is a white house advisor on arms control. >> the steps we're taking here will have a concrete consequence in terms of locking down material, increasing cooperation against nuclear smuggling, and therefore making nuclear terrorism less likely. >> the terrorists are definitely interested in acquire being either weapons or material. >> brown: this woman is with the center for strategic and international studies. >> the nuclear security summit tries to say, hey, there's no big difference between the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapons states. nuclear security affects us all. we all need to take steps to ensure that terrorists don't get access to nuclear material. so in a way, it's going to play this role to bring greater cohesion among a wide

variety of states. >> brown: but this man from the non-proliferation policy education center says the very different situations among the many nations pose limits to what the u.s. can ask. >> when you get into the specifics of what they need to do to secure their material , you eventually run up against their desire not to give you too much information about where their material is and your desire not to reveal what exactly your procedures are for protecting your material less someone figure out how to defeat it. there's a natural limit to how far we can go. >> brown: the full summit gets underway tonight with a working dinner. tomorrow delegates will hold a series of plenary meetings which the administration hopes will yield agreement on securing nuclear materials worldwide. >> lehrer: now, a look at this summit and other similar gatherings from former clinton administration secretary of state madeleine albright and former ford and bush national

security advisor brent scowcroft. madam secretary, first, what do you expect to come from this meeting here in washington? >> well, i think that it's a very important meeting in that as the invitations went out for this summit, there were also very clear requests that each of the countries deliver something. they're talking them as house gifts. that they in fact having been invited somewhere will reciprocate and come up with their pledges about what they're going to do to secure the nuclear material. this is not going to be, as president obama said, just a summit where there's some kind of a gahzi statement and no deliverables. so i do think that the pressure tomorrow will be for various leaders to come forward and explain what it is they're going to do. the statement that was made a little earlier about what ukraine has already agreed to is that kind of a deliverable.

>> lehrer: brent skowcroft, is it not true to say though that all 40-some of leaders, including president obama, are pretty much in agreement in general about, hey, let's do something about the proliferation of nuclear weapons? so they're not coming in here to argue or debate. am i right about that? >> yes, you are, jim. i think that's one of the benefits of starting out the way president obama is on nuclear security. this is part of a four-part program, the first was the signing of a new start treaty. and then the defense department came out with a nuclear policy review. then there's this summit. then next month there's a non-proliferation treaty conference. this summit focuses on things that virtually everybody wants. nobody wants loose nukes or loose fissile material

floating around so it can be picked up by bad guys. that makes it fairly easy to develop a communique and get everybody on board with the part of the nuclear business that almost everyone agrees to. i think it's a very useful first step. >> lehrer: madam secretary, you agree that this could be a fairly easy task going into this thing at least. >> well, in going in, i think that the issue will be afterwards how to make sure that each of the countries follows through on what it is that they pledged. but brett is right. basically there is agreement here is that there has to be some kind of control over this very, very dangerous kind of element that exists and to make sure that it doesn't get into the hands of terrorists. the worst weapons into the hands of the worst people. but i do think there will be a lot of follow-up work. i find really interesting-- and both brent and i know how hard this is to do-- is this

quite elaborate program that started with the speech that president obama made in prague about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. then the steps that brent outlined. and that this is a very big initiative on the part of the obama administration to get control over this material. >> lehrer: brent skowcroft, isn't it correct to say though that most of these meetings-- meetings like this... and i realize this is unprecedented in many ways because it's in the united states, but there are meetings like this, similar meetings at the u.n. and other places-- that these things are very well scripted, that everybody knows how they're going to end up before the first plane hits the tarmac? is that the case here? >> well, they almost have to be because you can't really at a summit this large you can't really negotiate. so, yes, there's a lot of it pre-agreed. but that doesn't mean that it's any the less meaningful to come out with a communique which the world community

broadly subscribes to. in addition, the fact that there are so many heads of state here and senior officials from other countries gives the opportunity for a lot of back room discussion on issues like what do we do on the non-proliferation treaty, how do we deal with the whole issue of proliferation which is too dangerous to bring up without the pre-conditions as you say having been negotiated before. so this is, yes, i hope it's been pre-scripted . i think the whole purpose of having it focus on this subject makes it easier to come wut ... out with solidarity and that's an important step. >> lehrer: do you agree, madam secretary, that there's a momentum just having the meeting. it focuses everybody's minds on making deals that they might not make otherwise as willingly or as quickly if this meeting hadn't been called for everybody to get together and talk about it. >> absolutely. it shows the power that the

united states has to convene all these countries, but also the realization that no power how powerful we are, we cannot deal with loose nukes and fissile material without the help of these other countries. what is also interesting about a summit like this is that there are a lot of bilateral meetings that the president has with people as well as bilateral meetings among other heads of state and a lot of other business gets conducted. this is the way these are action-forcing mechanisms in terms of the countries that are coming and the united states as the host. so there's a lot that is going on specifically to deal with the nuclear issue but i'm sure that when president obama met with president hu that they talked about other things to do in u.s.-china relations. so a lot goes on in a summit like this. >> lehrer: would you agree, brent skowcroft, that today's meeting between president hu and president obama is a good example of a side meeting that wouldn't have happened

otherwise and good things for both sides could come out of it? >> it certainly is. secretary albright's exactly right. one of the advantages of meeting on the fringes of a big summit like this is you don't have to have a communique after the bilaterals. you don't have to have a joint press conference. you can really unburden yourself about some of your inner hopes and fears to your counterparts and make much greater progress than the lengthy discussions through long-distance diplomacy permit. >> lehrer: madam second, can you think based on your experience-- because you were a u.n.... ambassador to the u.n. before you were secretary of state. based on your high-level attendance at meetings like this, could something really unexpected happen either negatively or positively that had to be dealt with that nobody really came to talk about? >> sometimes what happens--

and this happens more at the u.n. where you have have not invited everybody and you run into somebody that you're actually not supposed to talk to-- but i do think that on the whole this kind of a meeting is pretty much pre-scripted as was said. what is interesting is that there are different levels of meetings. there's the kind of official meeting where the heads of state sit down in chairs and talk to each other. then there are various others that have been put into play that are called puliciized where there's very brief meetings but i do think it is always possible that something unexpected will happen. there's a lot of staff work that is going into this, a lot of looking at what contingencies are, the kind of "watch out for"s, but this seems to me a very, very well planned meeting. >> lehrer: based on your experience, is is there anything that leaps to mind that you think that was... something that happened that might not have happened if

these folks hadn't gotten together and talked? >> well, i think, yes, there's a chance that not getting together, for example, before the non-proliferation treaty, would have let a lot of people in the vernacular wander off the reservation. this is a chance to mobilize on, as i said before, an issue on which there's broad agreement and to get people heading in the same direction . that makes it easier to cope with some of the more difficult issues of proliferation on which there are probably a wide difference between the group. so i think it's a very, a very skillful way to approach the whole very complicated nuclear question. i think the administration is to be applauded for taking such a comprehensive approach. >> lehrer: let's be specific here for a moment. that's the dealing with iran and its nuclear program.

that jeff brown mentioned that everybody knows is either on the table or off the table at this meeting. do you think something really major, not a communique but just as a result of these meetings could come out of this about iran? >> i think it's quite possible. as secretary albright said, i think it's quite clear that president obama and president hu didn't just talk about securing loose nuclear weapons or fissile material. my guess is is that among the other things they talked about was how to deal with iran. now that's a proliferation problem not necessarily a loose nukes problem. but the two sides have had somewhat different approaches. where we have been pushing for sanctions and the chinese say sanctions probably is not the best way to go. i think this gives an opportunity to discuss and to

formulate at the top possible level how they can proceed together for the goal that they both agree on. >> lehrer: do you agree with that, madam secretary, that something really important could come out of this because of china's past position and the u.s. past position and the two presidents talked today? >> i do think that something can come out of it. what i think is very interesting is to look at the parallel things that are going on. at the united nags they are working on a sanctions resolution. even at the highest levels, the kind of thing that happens normally in people-to-people relationships, there is peer pressure. when you see 47 heads of state discussing an issue of this importance and then clearly trying to, i'm sure there will be other discussions on iran, and what will happen is that the united states is not going to have to do everything alone. there will be other countries that agree that iran should not be moving forward.

therefore then there's a sharing of the responsibility to move the process forward. but i do think that iran has to be watching this pretty carefully and seeing how these two issues are going on, what is is happening in washington and what's happening in new york. >> lehrer: do you agree, brent skowcroft, that overriding all of this is the message here is that the u.s. doesn't have to go alone on this one? >> well, i think that's importantly true. i think that's the reason for the way it's being orchestrated now. everybody agrees on this issue. having agreed, there's a sense of solidarity. they're prepared to move ahead jointly, much more than they would if this meeting were not taking place. i agree completely. >> lehrer: brent skowcroft, madam secretary, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, jim. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, our spotlight on

tampa, florida, still struggling under the weight of the economic downturn; and poland after the plane crash. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman in our newsroom. >> holman: u.s. troops in afghanistan opened fire on a passenger bus today and killed four civilians. there were conflicting accounts of how it happened. the incident sparked anti- american protests on the main highway out of kandahar. crowds chanted, "death to america," and called for the downfall of afghan president hamid karzai. karzai himself condemned the shooting as a violation of nato's promise to safeguard civilians. in pakistan, local officials reported 41 insurgents and two soldiers were killed when the militants attacked two checkpoints. it happened in the northwest tribal region of orakzai, where an offensive began last month to root out taliban fighters. the u.n. reported today more than 200,000 pakistanis have fled the region to escape the fighting. the political crisis in thailand deepened further today.

the election commission ordered the ruling party be dissolved for allegedly misusing campaign donations. and the coffins of 21 anti- government protesters were paraded through the streets of bangkok. they died saturday in violent clashes with soldiers. the prime minister has refused to resign, but today, the army chief appeared to support calls for his resignation. >> if the issue can't be resolved through political means, i understand that the dissolution of parliament has to come. some people have suggested a government of national unity. i don't know. i'll leave the matter to them. i only want peace. that's all i'm asking. >> holman: the protesters have insisted on new elections. search crews went inside a west virginia coal mine today to recover the bodies of the last nine miners from last week's deadly explosion. 29 men were killed. a team of federal investigators also was scheduled to arrive today, to begin work on what caused the blast. a new debt assistance deal for

greece won a favorable response on world markets today. on sunday, european leaders agreed to lend the greek government up to $40 billion if it's needed. the international monetary fund would contribute another $13 billion. the move eased fears that greece could default on its debt. on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained eight points, closing above 11,000 for the first time since september of 2008. the nasdaq rose more than three points to close near 2458. the 2010 pulitzer prizes were announced today. the "washington post" led the way with four awards. the "herald courier" of bristol, virginia, with only seven reporters, took the public service prize for stories on mismanaged natural gas royalties. and "pro publica" shared an award for investigative reporting, a first for an online-only news organization. among the arts winners, the drama prize went to "next to normal," a musical about a mentally ill woman and her family. and liaquat ahamed won the

history prize for "lords of finance: the bankers who broke the world," about the run-up to the great depression. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's web site. for now, back to jim. >> lehrer: now, poland's great national tragedy. ray suarez has that story. >> suarez: signs of mourning were everywhere today in warsaw, two days after president lech kaczynski was killed in a plane crash along with dozens of other high- ranking polish officials. >> the people are sad. nobody is happy. we just do what we have to do. we will see what will happen. it's real big tragedy for us. >> suarez: president kaczynski's body was returned sunday. greeted by his daughter and his twin brother. thousands lined the route from the airport to the presidential palace where the body will lie in state for a

week. in all, 96 people died in saturday's crash when kaczynski's soviet-made plane went down near smolen skchlt k russia 275 west of moscow. the victims included the president's wife, the polish army and navy chiefs, the head of the national security office, and the president of the state bank. they were heading to a memorial in the katyn forest where soviet secret police executed thousands of polish military officers 70 years ago during world war ii. former polish president . >> we lost the elite of this country, a part of us. it's very similar to the katyn massacre. at that time our head was taken away and cut off. now unexpectedly we also lost great people from various political areas, and it will be very hard to replace them.

>> suarez: the polish prime minister convened an emergency meeting this week to try to fill the gaps. the parliamentary speaker was named acting president. the investigation also proceeded amid questions about why the pilot rejected warnings from the control tower and repeatedly tried to land in dense fog. he crashed on the 5th attempt. a reconstruction by the russian air force showed the plane was too low and at an angle smashing into woods near the runway. in the meantime, condolences poured in from around the world. polish immigrants across the u.s. attended memorial masses from new york to arizona. in washington the polish embassy lowered its flag to half staff, and the u.s. state department voiced hope for the future. >> this tragedy, you know, cuts short these lives that we felt deeply across the world but their legacy will live on in a free and flourishing poland. >> suarez: presidential

election had been scheduled for october but it's expected new elections will now be called within the next two months. for more, we are joined by andrew nagorski, author and former warsaw and moscow bureau chief for "newsweek." he is now vice president of the east-west institute, an international affairs think tank. you heard the former polish president say we lost great people and it will be hard to replace them. how hard? is poland managing today when it lost such a large group of its elite? >> it's managing but it's very painful. the mourning which is going on is huge. it was such a shock to the system. if you can imagine that sort of group of people in this country going down in air force one and maybe on their way to something like the 9/11 site which adds a symbolic value. for poland, what happened

in katyn, where the destination of this plane , was just as emotional, even more so. but i think what we have to say is that amid the mourning, there has been a tremendous resilience shown by the polish people and the system which is after all a democratic system only created 20 years ago after the collapse of communism is showing that it's functioning. every step of that system is functioning. an acting president. now there's an aking head of the central bank. people are being replaced and new elections are coming up. there's a sense i think already of quiet pride that they are managing with this this terrible tragedy. >> suarez: you mentioned that the system is only 20 years old. is there a deep enough group in leadership so that these positions in a fairly young system could be filled quietly, easily and with competent people? >> not easily.

but i think they will find competent people. i think there have been a lot of people who have risen in the last 20 years. remember also poland had a struggle for freedom for the previous 20 years at least. but especially in the '80s. that helped nurture a new generation of leaders who at first when they went into the opposition largely, into a part of things like the solidarity movement didn't imagine they'd ever be running the country. by running an underground movement, an opposition movement, they learned the tactics of politics, forced the change in the system and then learned to manage the new system. i think we're going to see a lot of new faces coming up. there will be gaps, of course , but i think the poles have shown that they can manage both the politics and the economics, by the way quite well. >> suarez: you mentioned that the ill fated trip was to a commemoration of the katyn massacre.

this was a part of a very slow process of normalizing relations with its giant neighbor, russia. how can this accident affect polish-russian relations? >> oddly enough, out of this tragedy there could be two good things that happened, if you can call them good things. one, the poles always felt a tremendous amount of frustration about the lie about the katyn massacre. during the communist days, the soviet union and the polish- communist rulers insisted on the lie that this was a massacre perpetuated by the germans who had not yet even invaded the soviet union at that time. even though everybody in poland knew who was really responsible, the official line was that lie. it's been painful to try to get the soviet union and then russia to finally acknowledge that. it began to change... this began to change in the '90s and gradually in recent years changed some more although

there was certainly back sliding as putin tried to air brush some of that history. this time there's been a lot more acknowledgment of what happened. even a polish film about the katyn forest massacre, extremely powerful feature film, was shown on russian television recently. putin did attend a memorial with a prime minister of poland a few days before this tragedy. i think the dignified way in which russia has dealt with the tragedy , having a day of mourning, being very respectful of what's happened and helping the families as they identify the remains has impressed the poles. a lot of the old polish, russian enmity won't disappear right away but there is hope that this will begin to clear the air and allow for a new more cooperative spirit to enter the relationship. >> suarez: very briefly,

andrew nagorski, you mentioned the dignified response from russia. is it also more open? you used to work in this country as a reporter. is it possible to find out more about these things than it once was? >> absolutely. i mean the press is still... still has a lot of controls but there has been on this issue there's been much more open discussion on the issue of simply the crash itself, the conditions. there's been... there have been immediate cooperation with the polish authorities. in the past, of course, everything would have been shrouded in secrecy which would have created all sorts of conspiracy theories. now the fact of this openness and this willingness to at least deal with and try to get to the facts and then also acknowledge the underlying tragedy that brought these people to smolensk in the first place has diminished those conspiracy theories. there always are some but they're far fewer.

i think as long as the russian authorities continue to behave this way, i think there will be far less of this kind of climate of suspicion that has usually shrouded these sorts of events. >> suarez: andrew nagorski, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, we kick off our spotlight series in florida this week with a focus on how the rippling economic downturn has affected attitudes toward government. one of the most visible signs of distress: florida ranks third in the nation in the number of home foreclosures. newshour economics correspondent paul solman reports on winners and losers: the people who've lost their homes, and the buyers who are snapping them up. the story is part of his ongoing reporting on making sense of financial news. >> let's start loading the bus. >> reporter: the foreclosures on southern florida's west

coast. ground zero ofhe state's spectacular real estate crash. >> a lot of you that studied in school probably know this is something like a bell curve. december of '05 up here, we hit 322,000 dollars is the average median sales price. since december '05 it came straight down. for the entire last year , we've been hovering at a leveling off of between $85 and $90,000. over the entire last year. >> reporter: mark joseph is the salesman in charge. the passengers, soon to be retirees and investors looking for a bargain. >> this has golf access. this is in the southwest section of cape coral. i'll tell you how about it when we get in the house. please watch your step exiting. >> reporter: first house on the gulf of mexico built in 2006 sold within months for $491,000. >> it's back on the market for $261,000.

that's 53 cents on the last mortgage price. feel free to walk around. >> reporter: free they felt. walk around, they did. an english investor louis janes at least liked what he saw at a discount of nearly 50%. >> this looks a lot better condition than a lot of the places i've seen. >> reporter: sir, how many places do you have in england? >> mid 20s. i'm looking to buy places over here now because there's better weather. i think there's a lot of opportunity. >> if if you're questioning if it's the right time to buy, it is definitely the right time to buy. you need to look at the numbers. look at the stats. for those of you that like numbers, numbers don't lie. the proof is right here. the front page of the real estate section. rental market red hot, guys. i'm not making this stuff up. you can rent your house out. >> reporter: on tour it's easy to forget the grim reality, howeverment behind many a bargain, a back story of despair. jason welsh is a golf pro originally from pennsylvania.

>> this is the living area here. you've got the great room set-up with the dining room, kitchen. >> reporter: he bought this house ten years ago for a little over $100,000. >> two kids live in this room. >> two kids in this room. >> somewhat of a distressed property. >> it wasn't perfect. it needed a little tlc. >> reporter: and needed more than a little fixer-upper refinancing. >> put in this type of almost marble stone. >> reporter: five years ago his equity in the home up several hundred thousand dollars, welsh put in the pool. >> an utter joy. it was a major undertaking. >> reporter: costs? >> it was right around $40,000- $42,000 for the pool and the cage. >> reporter: pushing the total mortgage to $240,000. soon after, the cape coral market began to sink like a stone. how much can you get for the house at this point? >> the comparables, $100,000- maybe $120,000 at most. >> reporter: the comparables being? >> this one here sold a little

less than a year ago for about $55,000. that one sold maybe eight months ago for around $104. and the one right here in front of us is empty. there's nobody in there. >> reporter: he says he stopped making payments six months ago and has tried to renegotiate his mortgage offering $150,000. the bank said no. instead, the house will sell to someone else. via foreclosure or a short sale which won't hurt welsh's credit as much. but the price will be far less than welsh is offering. >> i call and try and get help. they just say i don't qualify . they're willing to sell it to somebody else for $100,000 out fro underneath me. >> reporter: distressed sellers with federal subsidies for properties owned by government agencies like fannie mae. >> that particular home because it's fannie mae if you were to buy something right now you're actually able to ask for up to

3.5% concession. that can be for appliances. that can be for closing costs. that's also an incentive in addition to the $8,000 tax credit. >> joseph says the other plus of fannie mae and freddie mac which have taken over so many of these homes because they insured the mortgages is their record of upkeep. >> this particular one is owned by fedy mack. they want their pools blue. they want the power on. they want the utilities on. 85 to 90 percent of the other lenders, they just want to churn and burn and don't care about the green pool. if it's a government-owned property they would like to see new carpet in the house. they would like to see the house painted because we're targeting owner-occupants. >> reporter: craig and linda robinson hail from illinois. >> we're going to retire in to years. we're looking for something to come here part time. >> reporter: snow birds. >> snow birds. >> yes. >> are we hold enough to be snow birds? >> we are. >> okay. >> reporter: bill buzzby is from my neck of the northeast, boston.

>> i want to buy a home for myself. i think cape coral has a lot of good deals. that's why i'm on the tour today. >> reporter: might you make an offer on one of the three we've seen so far. >> quite possible. i'm ready to go. >> reporter: ready to go means something quite different to juan mesa, however. back on the flip side of the foreclosure story, the down side of mark joseph's job. >> juan, the first concern i have on the wall right here if i don't take this off the wall it's going to get thrown away. if it's something you need i need you to take it now. >> reporter: this woman was here to translate. mesa bought the home in 2002. mortgage for $80,000, it's worth no more than $20,000 today. mesa can no longer afford the payments so he's giving up the house. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: for a $1500 relocation fee. >> important that he finishes the rest of the backyard. this is the part of the job

that is tough. it's very tough. the end result is the man just lost his house after seven or eight years of paying. somebody new is going to come in and pay $20,000-$30,000 for it when he might have stayed if they would have offered him that deal. >> reporter: instead he will now be renting a room. >> he's paying $300 a month. >> reporter: would that cover a $20,000 purchase? >> yes, it would. absolutely. >> reporter: while mesa rounded up his last possessions we asked laura how she felt. >> it's kind of intimidating and scary that someone just would offer you $1500 to get out of your house, your home. it hits home. >> reporter: it hits home because her own mortgage is some $150,000 underwater and she's in default. hasn't made a payment since june. >> my husband was out of work for eight months. i was the only one bringing home income. using the credit cards to basically live and try to make our mortgage payment. we just grew deeper and deeper

and deeper into debt. when we called to get help, they told us that they were probably eligible to get this remodification for a loan. that was not the case. >> reporter: do you feel bad not making that payment. >> absolutely. i cried every night. how can i not pay these people back? this is my home. it's hard. >> reporter: but finally you had no choice. >> no. it's been hard. i'm sorry. >> reporter: we're not used to doing interviews that bring tears. but given the frustration frustrations of the foreclosure crisis in florida, there was no avoiding them. >> just upsetting. you know, there's supposed to be help out there. there is none. obama says he's going to help. he's doing all this stuff. there is no help. no money is get to go the average person. who has credit history for ten years of paying on a mortgage and you don't qualify? i don't understand that. >> reporter: the administration has announced a new plan to help underwater

homeowners. encouraging those who hold their mortgages to write down the principal due. >> this will be the last home we're going to see. three bedrooms, two baths. >> reporter: meanwhile the tours go on. >> it is listed for $76,900 making it 38 cents on the last sales price. >> this has been on the market one day. this house will go fast. >> reporter: to an investor perhaps or a savvy snow bird, but not to the person who paid $204,500 in 2005 and used to call it home. >> ifill: the housing market is just one element of the overriding unease here. joblessness, the soaring cost of living and access to education are also factors. joining us to share their views and their stories on how florida's boom went bust are norm stevens, president of south florida community college, located in the county where unemployment has quadrupled in the past five years.

holy tomlynn owns a tampa employment agency that places people in temporary and permanent positions. and an unemployed retail worker whose own house is in foreclosure and chuck thomas an out of work electrician has decided to go back to school in hopes of finding a new career. chuck thomas, i want to start with you because you lost your house two years ago living with your wife in a one bedroom apartment. no job. no health insurance. how are you breaking out of that vicious cycle? >> well, the... we really have all of our eggs in the school. education. when i became an electrician i never expected to be out of work. not something i foresaw 20 years ago. so i'm going back to college. >> ifill: what are you hoping to get out of college? >> an opportunity. you know. at this point it's just hope honestly because there's no jobs out there for an electrician. i'm just looking to keep my head above water i guess. keep going in the right direction.

>> ifill: norm stevens, you've seen your college where enrollment has been up, what 24%? >> 24% in the last three years. >> ifill: because of people like chuck. >> absolutely. it's very difficult for people. but they come back to school when they're out of work. it's a good thing that they do that. i think it helps them to get opportunities in the future. >> ifill: what is it they're looking for when they come back to school? >> a number of different things. certainly they're looking for careers that may be more secure. for example, in the allied health nursing area we're getting a number of students that are interested in going into those careers because it means, they think, greater job security. but also in fact our largest enrollment increases are from... are in the traditional first two years of a baccalaureate degree program, the traditional student enrollment. we're seeing over 30% growth over the last three years. they want to get the first two years in and then move on and get a bachelor's degree and hopefully that will improve their opportunities.

>> ifill: i saw you nodding your head when you saw the person in poll solomon's piece saying he tried to get his loan modified and could get to no help. what have you been doing to make ends meet? >> three years i've been waiting for modification. a trial period. turned down. trial period. turned down. start over. then more paper. fax more paper. mail more paper. pre-register. i have to go to the post office and send all the paperwork in. nothing is happening. working with catholic charities. hud certified which is one of the requirements of having them... the bank look at your loan. they still not working with us. now i'm hoping to use the new program for the unemployed and to see if something is there to help someone like me who may lose my home. >> ifill: you've been doing a lot of temporary work. >> temporary work. >> ifill: you've been selling

cosmetics and cars. >> it's beautiful to keep my soul beautiful. >> ifill: whatever works for you. let's ask holy about it because you work with a lot of people who are in the same positions as these people. do you find they're all just cobbling together whatever they can? >> well, we get a lot of, for different reasons people come to us. but for folks who are in between jobs , a lot of folks are trying to make their mortgage payments so they have to augment but also mary kay or a temporary position. i've seen a lot of other types of businesses out there, pyramid businesses as well. temp has been a wonderful way to get through because a lot of times that will lead you to something full time. >> ifill: is that really true? are people being led to full time jobs or are they pretty much taking one temperature job after another after another? >> it can be that way. by design people like it that way. we're seeing things are

changing within the last month where companies are beginning to take some of these folks on full time. we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. especially for the health field and education. those are the two areas. colleges are hiring. and our hospitals are hiring. we're focusing on getting people funneled into and retrained so that they can, you know, go into those fields. >> ifill: assume for a moment that there is some light at the end of the tunnel as holy so optimistically sees. the beginning of a turn-around. let's talk about what government's role can be in all of this. i come from washington where government is supposed to be always involved, right? you run a community college. is the state government, is the federal government helping you cope with all these extra students? >> yes, it is in a number of different ways. we receive federal monies to help us with our vocational programs that are very expensive and so-called carl perkins grants. they help pay for equipment. keep us state of the art.

also financial aid in our case over 80% of our students receive some kind of financial assistance. much of that is through the federal government. >> ifill: has that government funding kept up with the pace of growth? >> yes, it has to some extent. i will tell you that our 25% enrollment increase over the last three years during that same time period, our state revenues have declined 10%. state revenues that come to our college. >> ifill: it doesn't sound like it is keeping up. >> on the other hand tuition has gone up. tuition has gone up in our case 24%. and also our enrollment has increased so the tuition revenues coming in partially offset the reductions in state revenues. but the government helps in a number of ways. >> ifill: that tuition increase comes out of your pocket, chuck. as you're trying to turn things around. how much is the government helping you in your bid to switch careers? >> currently most of my school comes from pel grants.

i do take out loans to cover up the shortfalls there. unemployment, i've exhausted all my unemployment at this point. there's nothing else out there. it's kind of a trep darb us time currently. i don't know what i will do next. honestly i have school to pay for. i just have to pay rent in the meantime. it's kind of tough. scary. >> ifill: do you expect washington or tallahassee to come to the rescue? >> i hope so. i would hope, you know, somebody would. >> ifill: jennifer, i may say you're over 50 years old. >> yes. >> ifill: you're out here in the job market. you're hoping to break through in some way. do you expect government to step in and help you? >> i would love to see a difference made so that over 50 i find that's where all ... where a lot of the jobs have been lost. they're not hiring if you're at a certain age. they're not hiring you for full time. they're not allowing you sta to stay in the job you're in

once you get to a certain age. you're like forced out because of the benefits part of it. i'm looking forward to a program that will help people that are over 50. >> ifill: holy, in washington there's been a lot of talk about stimulus spending create jobs and other job-creation solutions. has that trickled down? >> it's beginning to, yes. one of the things that we've had happen is our... the stimulus money for the rapid transit or the high speed rail. i believe that will create a lot of jobs for us. i'm from cleveland. off the rails, you know, you have businesses that crop up. i think more entrepreneurs will grow out of that. home values will also probably increase over time because if you live near the train, that's a good thing for everyone to be able to get, you know, to and from home to work.

efficiently. i think it's starting to for us absolutely. >> ifill: chuck, when you hear people talk about stimulus spending from washington or bailouts for auto companies or banks, do you see that helping you? >> no, not really. honestly. when i called the hall about the power plant that they're planning on building, they said, oh, a couple years. hang on. i can't. i can't hang on for two years. sitting around. i've got to eat. i got a wife. i could build trains. i can put lights up anywhere. but i need a job. i need it today. or i need school. which is why i'm back in school to hopefully have a better opportunity for a job. but i can't wait two years for a power plant even though i've worked in a nuclear power plant before. >> ifill: it won't be online tomorrow. >> no. >> ifill: how about that for you, jennifer? when you hear these solutions

out of washington, does it seem to work for you? >> not for me right now. looking into the possibilities. i am apply to go the schools also to go back to school. i'm looking into homeland security now. custom service. custom service to homeland security because i feel i still have to... it would enhance... it's a change but it's something that i feel will work and hopefully there's a need there. i'm looking in that direction and taking classes there. >> ifill: we wish you all the best in all of your efforts. norm stevens, jennifer bryant, chuck thomas and holley tomlynn. thank you all very much. >> lehrer: >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day. nearly 50 world leaders convened a washington summit on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. and poland mourned its president and other leaders killed in a weekend plane crash in russia. investigators said the pilot ignored warnings about heavy

fog. the newshour is always online. kwame holman, in our newsroom, previews what's there. kwame? >> holman: our spotlight city coverage continues. watch an interview on how florida's demographics impact its economy, and use our patchwork nation map to see foreclosure rates in your area. plus, you can submit questions for our tax day town hall in tampa with white house economic adviser christina romer and former senator mel martinez, among others. on the nuclear summit, we've posted all of jeff's interview with the egyptian foreign minister. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill in tampa, florida, where tomorrow we'll turn the spotlight on the new health care reform law. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by:

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