BETHPAGE, N.Y. — While the subprime mortgage crisis is now mainstream news, the real estate contraction has eluded the north and south shore of the Long Island, N.Y. peninsula, where home values have done nothing but go up, up, up. The average price of a home here is currently $419,000.

Not unlike Los Angeles and San Francisco environs, a middle-income family is hard pressed to find an affordable home that is close to their workplace. For credit union employees of Bethpage Federal Credit Union here, it's difficult to come up with sufficient down payment cash and make hefty mortgage payments, pay taxes and still be able to have a life.

Kirk Kordeleski knows that better than anyone. The CEO of Bethpage FCU has witnessed the housing problem for several years now and has felt the sting. "Over the last five years, I've seen home prices soar so significantly that middle income people are just priced out of it completely. We are a middle-income-market community credit union and our members are struggling in those salary ranges to buy homes in the tradition of Long Island–where parents historically saw their children buy homes nearby and raise their own kids. That's the Long Island tradition and I've seen it start to fall apart. We're losing something very valuable if we lose that completely," said Kordeleski.