Foreclosures Stirring up Trouble in a Quiet Neighbourhood

May 4th, 2009

Foreclosures are stirring up trouble in a quiet neighbourhood of Windham County. A minimum of 140 foreclosure notices have already been served in 2009 in this small town. The people are not surprised to find them on their doorsteps. They do not burst into anger. They stoically accept the inevitable.

Arthur Johnston, the community State Marshal said that the people have known for a long time that trouble has been brewing. They have only been waiting for someone to tell them so.

The percentage of bad news has been rather higher than what had been feared. During the first three months of 2009, the foreclosure rate was 1:180. In the state the rate was 1:245. The figures have been released by RealtyTrac.

This semi rural area has been a ‘quiet corner’ and yet today it is leading the state in foreclosure figures. It might raise eyebrows. But the officials say that this part of the north east has suffered for a long time from low wages and medium levels of college attainments. There are villages of the old mill area running along rail tracks. This area has been especially vulnerable to the mortgage crisis.

Till March 2009 about 26% of all the mortgages in Plainfield as well as in adjacent Killingly had gone underwater – the loans being more than the worth of the house. The survey has been carried by the Warren Group of Boston.

Johan Filchak of Northeaster Connecticut Council of Governments said that the area was beautiful. But it has often been talked about as the ‘the forgotten corner’ because of its unemployment and poverty levels.

Many towns like Plainfield has been struggling to survive after manufacturing jobs vanished few decades ago. Replacement jobs on similar pay scales were not easy to find. Killingly County has been lucky to continue with its most important employer Frito-Lay Inc. A recently set up retail plaza hopes to generate $800,000 annually from tax revenues said the economic development coordinator of Killingly, Elsie Bisset.

There has been however a growth in population during the last ten years but this is because of an influx from Rhode Islanders who have come here in search of cheaper housing. But the wage structure has not come up to the level of the rest of Connecticut. The home prices are dropping sharply. Without money in their pockets it is difficult for people to keep their mortgages running. Foreclosures become inevitable.