Foreclosures Boarding Up Life
July 6th, 2009
Foreclosures are boarding up homes and life as blight dominates the scenery. Councilperson Tony Brancatelli of Cleveland City looks around him for signs of normalcy.
Last autumn he visited two houses that looked vacant and had been foreclosed upon over a year previously. The houses stood facing each other and had become a happy hunting ground for squatters. Brancatelli wanted to see if they had finally been boarded up. Suddenly his focus was diverted when he saw an old woman with only leg bent on the ground. Octogenarian Ada Flores was attacking weeds with a hatched and picking up some garbage into a bag. She usually moves around in a wheelchair and has poor knowledge of English. Teenagers had been loudly preying on the vacant houses. She crossed herself and hoped the house would soon be either boarded up or pulled down.
Cleveland, staggering under the crisis has seen about 10,000 foreclosures during the span of two years. For a good part of 2007 before California, Nevada and Florida took over the top positions, Cleveland had been number one. Today it ranks 24th among the metropolitan areas. To Cleveland empty houses are nothing. It has come in the wake of unemployment and shutting down of industries much before the latest foreclosure crisis emanating from sub-prime mortgages surfaced and took the field.
Half the population has moved away from Cleveland and it has the highest poverty rate in the country. Nevertheless nothing has been as fierce as the present battering Cleveland is getting.
In December just when hope was beginning to peep through, Cuyahoga County that includes Cleveland, showed a huge spike in foreclosure postings. The number was so high that none could give an accurate count. The rough estimate of the city is that number of vacancies is 1:13 with about 10,000 houses lying vacant. The treasurer of the county says that most probably the number will be 15,000. The majority of the houses were bought by investors and speculators. The same category is now purchasing houses in bulk.
The city is struggling to grapple with the dangers of these vacant units. The fear is that things are worsening without any signs of improvement because more jobs are being lost. The unemployment rate is now record 8.8%. Many who have managed to hold on to their houses are now reluctant to stay on in these ghostly surroundings.
- Spurt in Sales of Foreclosed Properties
- Foreclosure Climate Changes Spirit of Competition to Cooperation Among Contractors
- Bouncing Cheques Issued by Title Companies Lead to Foreclosures
- Increase in Foreclosures Prompting Class Action Legal Suits
- Avoiding Foreclosures by Walking Away From Loans are not Without Problems
- Foreclosure Assistance Being Taken on Tour by Housing Advocate
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