To the Editor:

As a former mortgage banker in Baltimore, I feel for the women described in “Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women” (front page, Jan. 15).

The subprime mortgage mess came about for many reasons. But a big part is missing from the media coverage, and it’s exactly the reason people took out subprime loans  they had bad credit and posed a big risk to the lenders.

Bad credit means missed payments on cars, 30-60-90-day late payments on credit cards, bankruptcies and so on.

While I know that these are things that should not have been overlooked by the lenders, and led to many of today’s crises, for the most part these people put themselves in a position in which the subprime loan was their only option.