What happened to people with home loans in 2008?

In 2010, foreclosure activity reached a record high. RealtyTrac reported that foreclosure-related sales made up nearly 26 percent of all U.S. home sales, and that these properties sold for roughly 28% less than comparable non-foreclosed homes.[10] Nationally, about 1.2 million homes were repossessed that year, the highest annual total on record.[11] The crisis hit certain groups especially hard. Studies found that minority households and fast-growing housing markets suffered the heaviest losses.[12]

This created a negative feedback loop: falling home prices reduced household wealth, which in turn weakened consumer spending and led to further layoffs in construction, retail, and banking. At the community level, areas with concentrated foreclosures saw vacancies rise, property-tax revenues decline, and— in some places—higher crime rates. Local governments faced shrinking budgets that limited support for schools and public services. Commentators sometimes described the hardest-hit areas as “ghost towns.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure_crisis

Your car gets repossessed and you get screwed, while the rich profit off your misfortune.

The only way you might benefit by having lots of debt when a crash happens is if it has no collateral, like credit card debt. Even then, this depends on how useful your credit score will be post-crash.