The family started to strain to make $2,000 monthly payments on a loan that, even at the best of times, “was a little bit beyond our means,” Mr. Janson said. As the house’s value sank, they owed more than it might ever be worth. They spent $3,500 and countless hours to modify the loan and reduce the payments to a more manageable $1,500 a month. They have Mr. Janson’s paycheck and his pension as a retired member of the Air Force.

“We can probably do it, but just barely,” Mr. Janson said.

Many of their friends and neighbors sold at a loss or walked away from their homes, but the Jansons decided to stay. When he drives home from work every day at midnight, he skims past signs for sparkling new houses — Harmony Homes! The Preserve! — but the house is all the family has.

“What we have is what we’re sitting in,” Mr. Janson said.

Their oldest daughter, Amanda Bumgardner, 29, was living at home with her three children as she waited for her husband to finish an Air Force tour in Arkansas. Last month, they moved to New Mexico. She is riveted to the news: of the presidential campaigns, the turmoil over race and policing. She keeps CNN playing like a night light as she and her children go to sleep.

One afternoon, as he sat at the kitchen table, Mr. Janson expressed frustration that had been building for months. “It just seems like the harder you work, the more punctual you are, the more integrity you have — none of that matters anymore,” he said. “It stinks. They brush us off like a crumb off the table.”