Fighting Foreclosure Blight

[yojimbo]

A lot has been posted about cities trying to counter the negative aspects of the growing foreclosure numbers. I found this interesting tidbit in a Buffalo NY related blog….

"A recent ruling by Judge Nowak has the potential to stop this nonsense in its tracks," says Bartley. "Judge Nowak ruled that a bank can not foreclose on any property in the City of Buffalo if that financial institution has outstanding judgments against it for non-payment of fines related to neglect of the properties it already controls…Clearly, this decision, if it's not reversed, will force these firms to at least maintain these properties or else not be so eager to foreclose."

Nowak is a housing court judge in Buffalo. Of course, anyone familiar with Buffalo knows that the city has had a crisis of foreclosures and vacant properties LONG before the latest mortgage and sub-prime woes kicked into overdrive. It is basically a city in decline run by a rather pathetic city council and bureaucracy that can now try to shift the responsibility for the city's urban rot onto the current sub-prime mess and the lenders. You can find the entire blog entry here..

http://fixbuffalo.blogspot.com/2007/08/neighborhood-foreclosure.html

It will be interesting to watch the long term affects these types of policies will have on the communities they are instituted in. Usually policies like these sound good up front, and are good propaganda for the public, but end up having dramatically different results than one would expect.

 

[blue_sky]

I wonder if this would make all mortgages in Buffalo non confirming?

Wouldn’t that be interesting…

[blue_sky]

I wonder if this would make all mortgages in Buffalo non confirming?

Wouldn’t that be interesting…

[blue_sky]

I wonder if this would make all mortgages in Buffalo non confirming?

Wouldn’t that be interesting…

[donaldduckmoore]

Does that judge have a law degree? He might be on something.

[donaldduckmoore]

Does that judge have a law degree? He might be on something.

[bsrsharma]

Empty Houses Home to Crime As Loans Fail

Neighborhoods Suffer As Crime Follows Foreclosures Into Vacant Houses

Eighty-five bungalows dot the cul-de-sac that joins West Ontario Avenue and East Ontario Avenue in Atlanta. Twenty-two are vacant, victims of mortgage fraud and foreclosure. Now house fires, prostitution, vandals and burglaries terrorize the residents left in this historic neighborhood called Westview Village.

“It’s created a safety hazard. And if we have to sell our house tomorrow, we’re out of luck,” said resident Scott Smith. “Real estate agents say to me ‘We’re not redlining you, but I tell my clients to think twice about buying here.'”

As defaults surge on mortgages made to borrowers with spotty credit and adjustable-rate loans, more people are noticing that their neighbors are caught up in the meltdown. Their misfortunes are haunting those left living on the same streets. The effects aren’t confined to just low-income or redeveloping communities; they are seeping into middle-class neighborhoods and brand new developments.

Smith, the vice president of Westview Community Organization Inc., keeps a map of the area, tracking each vacant property and notifying local officials when nefarious activity is suspected.

Georgia has the eighth largest foreclosure rate in the nation, one filing for every 142 households, according to a third-quarter report from foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. Nevada has the worst rate with one filing in every 61 households, while the nationwide rate is one filing for every 196 households.

“They’ve seen a lot of prostitution in the area, vagrants wandering in and out of the empty houses and drug activity,” said Officer Dakarta Richardson of the Atlanta Police Department. “Some people that I talked to are afraid to walk out of their homes at night.”

Some other people in the area have been affected by break-ins, and there have been house fires in several of the vacant homes in the past year, Richardson said.

The rise in crime in Westview is typical of a neighborhood struggling with numerous foreclosures, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute in Chicago.

That study showed that when the foreclosure rate increases one percentage point, neighborhood violent crime rises 2.33 percent.

“The key here is the concentration of those foreclosures at a neighborhood level. When you have more than one foreclosure in a few block area, that’s when you start to think about the effects on property values and the effects on crime,” Immergluck said.

A report published Tuesday by the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, N.C.-based consumer advocate, estimates that 44.5 million U.S. households will see their property values decline a combined $223 billion as foreclosures surge in coming years, particularly in minority communities.

Historically the most affected areas were lower-income and were prone to subprime and predatory lending, irresponsible house flipping and mortgage fraud, Immergluck said.

However, “the problem now is on a different scale,” he said. “It’s affecting a lot more suburban, moderate-income places” as more people of different incomes default on riskier loans.

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, Calif., full of subdivisions with half-million dollar homes, homeowners are fighting inner-city problems like gangs, drugs, theft and graffiti.

During the boom, the suburb just south of Sacramento sprouted 10,000 homes in four years, attracting investors from the San Francisco area. Now many houses stand empty, weeds overtaking lawns, signs lining the street: “Bank Repo,” “For Rent,” “No trespassing — bank owned property.” A typical home’s value has dropped from about $570,000 to the low $400,000s.

California ranks second in the nation with one foreclosure filing for every 88 households, RealtyTrac said.

The homeowners sometimes have no options but to accept any renters they can get, said Norm Schriever, a local real estate and loan agent.

“You get some bad renters in there and the weeds start growing and a few windows are broken and it starts descending into a feeling of chaos,” he said.

Thieves also have looted some empty homes, stripping them of electrical appliances or valuable copper wiring and pipes that can be sold as scrap, he said.

Banks aren’t watching foreclosed properties closely, said Modesto, Calif., Police Chief Roy Wasden.

“As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures and it’s quite dangerous,” he said.

Franklin Reserve resident Susan McDonald said two of the homes on her block were turned into indoor marijuana farms. Both caught fire last summer after the pot growers tapped into the city’s electric grid with faulty wiring.

But McDonald, who has lived in the community for three years and is president of the residents’ association, jokes that they make better neighbors than some.

“The pot growers, they mow their lawns, they take out their garbage,” said McDonald, an executive at a local bank. “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing the last few years.”

Crime reports in Franklin Reserve rose 45 percent in May, to 100 from 69 in the same month last year, but record-keeping changed when Elk Grove created its own police force in August 2006, said Officer Chris Trim, spokesman for the Elk Grove Police Department

To deter crime, the community policing unit is charged with working with code enforcement officers on problems such as unkempt homes and patrol officers swing past vacant homes as part of their normal duties. But there has been no increase in police budget, overtime or staff as a result of the empty homes.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are doing what they can. One Sunday last month, two dozen church members gathered their lawn mowers and weed trimmers and cleaned up 27 vacant homes.

“We had weeds that were almost eye-level high,” said Steve Steele, pastor of the Tree of Life Community Church. “If no one was home, we just kind of did it good Samaritan style.”
…………..
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071113/vacant_homes_crime.html?.v=1

[bsrsharma]

Empty Houses Home to Crime As Loans Fail

Neighborhoods Suffer As Crime Follows Foreclosures Into Vacant Houses

Eighty-five bungalows dot the cul-de-sac that joins West Ontario Avenue and East Ontario Avenue in Atlanta. Twenty-two are vacant, victims of mortgage fraud and foreclosure. Now house fires, prostitution, vandals and burglaries terrorize the residents left in this historic neighborhood called Westview Village.

“It’s created a safety hazard. And if we have to sell our house tomorrow, we’re out of luck,” said resident Scott Smith. “Real estate agents say to me ‘We’re not redlining you, but I tell my clients to think twice about buying here.'”

As defaults surge on mortgages made to borrowers with spotty credit and adjustable-rate loans, more people are noticing that their neighbors are caught up in the meltdown. Their misfortunes are haunting those left living on the same streets. The effects aren’t confined to just low-income or redeveloping communities; they are seeping into middle-class neighborhoods and brand new developments.

Smith, the vice president of Westview Community Organization Inc., keeps a map of the area, tracking each vacant property and notifying local officials when nefarious activity is suspected.

Georgia has the eighth largest foreclosure rate in the nation, one filing for every 142 households, according to a third-quarter report from foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. Nevada has the worst rate with one filing in every 61 households, while the nationwide rate is one filing for every 196 households.

“They’ve seen a lot of prostitution in the area, vagrants wandering in and out of the empty houses and drug activity,” said Officer Dakarta Richardson of the Atlanta Police Department. “Some people that I talked to are afraid to walk out of their homes at night.”

Some other people in the area have been affected by break-ins, and there have been house fires in several of the vacant homes in the past year, Richardson said.

The rise in crime in Westview is typical of a neighborhood struggling with numerous foreclosures, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute in Chicago.

That study showed that when the foreclosure rate increases one percentage point, neighborhood violent crime rises 2.33 percent.

“The key here is the concentration of those foreclosures at a neighborhood level. When you have more than one foreclosure in a few block area, that’s when you start to think about the effects on property values and the effects on crime,” Immergluck said.

A report published Tuesday by the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, N.C.-based consumer advocate, estimates that 44.5 million U.S. households will see their property values decline a combined $223 billion as foreclosures surge in coming years, particularly in minority communities.

Historically the most affected areas were lower-income and were prone to subprime and predatory lending, irresponsible house flipping and mortgage fraud, Immergluck said.

However, “the problem now is on a different scale,” he said. “It’s affecting a lot more suburban, moderate-income places” as more people of different incomes default on riskier loans.

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, Calif., full of subdivisions with half-million dollar homes, homeowners are fighting inner-city problems like gangs, drugs, theft and graffiti.

During the boom, the suburb just south of Sacramento sprouted 10,000 homes in four years, attracting investors from the San Francisco area. Now many houses stand empty, weeds overtaking lawns, signs lining the street: “Bank Repo,” “For Rent,” “No trespassing — bank owned property.” A typical home’s value has dropped from about $570,000 to the low $400,000s.

California ranks second in the nation with one foreclosure filing for every 88 households, RealtyTrac said.

The homeowners sometimes have no options but to accept any renters they can get, said Norm Schriever, a local real estate and loan agent.

“You get some bad renters in there and the weeds start growing and a few windows are broken and it starts descending into a feeling of chaos,” he said.

Thieves also have looted some empty homes, stripping them of electrical appliances or valuable copper wiring and pipes that can be sold as scrap, he said.

Banks aren’t watching foreclosed properties closely, said Modesto, Calif., Police Chief Roy Wasden.

“As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures and it’s quite dangerous,” he said.

Franklin Reserve resident Susan McDonald said two of the homes on her block were turned into indoor marijuana farms. Both caught fire last summer after the pot growers tapped into the city’s electric grid with faulty wiring.

But McDonald, who has lived in the community for three years and is president of the residents’ association, jokes that they make better neighbors than some.

“The pot growers, they mow their lawns, they take out their garbage,” said McDonald, an executive at a local bank. “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing the last few years.”

Crime reports in Franklin Reserve rose 45 percent in May, to 100 from 69 in the same month last year, but record-keeping changed when Elk Grove created its own police force in August 2006, said Officer Chris Trim, spokesman for the Elk Grove Police Department

To deter crime, the community policing unit is charged with working with code enforcement officers on problems such as unkempt homes and patrol officers swing past vacant homes as part of their normal duties. But there has been no increase in police budget, overtime or staff as a result of the empty homes.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are doing what they can. One Sunday last month, two dozen church members gathered their lawn mowers and weed trimmers and cleaned up 27 vacant homes.

“We had weeds that were almost eye-level high,” said Steve Steele, pastor of the Tree of Life Community Church. “If no one was home, we just kind of did it good Samaritan style.”
…………..
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071113/vacant_homes_crime.html?.v=1

[bsrsharma]

Empty Houses Home to Crime As Loans Fail

Neighborhoods Suffer As Crime Follows Foreclosures Into Vacant Houses

Eighty-five bungalows dot the cul-de-sac that joins West Ontario Avenue and East Ontario Avenue in Atlanta. Twenty-two are vacant, victims of mortgage fraud and foreclosure. Now house fires, prostitution, vandals and burglaries terrorize the residents left in this historic neighborhood called Westview Village.

“It’s created a safety hazard. And if we have to sell our house tomorrow, we’re out of luck,” said resident Scott Smith. “Real estate agents say to me ‘We’re not redlining you, but I tell my clients to think twice about buying here.'”

As defaults surge on mortgages made to borrowers with spotty credit and adjustable-rate loans, more people are noticing that their neighbors are caught up in the meltdown. Their misfortunes are haunting those left living on the same streets. The effects aren’t confined to just low-income or redeveloping communities; they are seeping into middle-class neighborhoods and brand new developments.

Smith, the vice president of Westview Community Organization Inc., keeps a map of the area, tracking each vacant property and notifying local officials when nefarious activity is suspected.

Georgia has the eighth largest foreclosure rate in the nation, one filing for every 142 households, according to a third-quarter report from foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. Nevada has the worst rate with one filing in every 61 households, while the nationwide rate is one filing for every 196 households.

“They’ve seen a lot of prostitution in the area, vagrants wandering in and out of the empty houses and drug activity,” said Officer Dakarta Richardson of the Atlanta Police Department. “Some people that I talked to are afraid to walk out of their homes at night.”

Some other people in the area have been affected by break-ins, and there have been house fires in several of the vacant homes in the past year, Richardson said.

The rise in crime in Westview is typical of a neighborhood struggling with numerous foreclosures, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute in Chicago.

That study showed that when the foreclosure rate increases one percentage point, neighborhood violent crime rises 2.33 percent.

“The key here is the concentration of those foreclosures at a neighborhood level. When you have more than one foreclosure in a few block area, that’s when you start to think about the effects on property values and the effects on crime,” Immergluck said.

A report published Tuesday by the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, N.C.-based consumer advocate, estimates that 44.5 million U.S. households will see their property values decline a combined $223 billion as foreclosures surge in coming years, particularly in minority communities.

Historically the most affected areas were lower-income and were prone to subprime and predatory lending, irresponsible house flipping and mortgage fraud, Immergluck said.

However, “the problem now is on a different scale,” he said. “It’s affecting a lot more suburban, moderate-income places” as more people of different incomes default on riskier loans.

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, Calif., full of subdivisions with half-million dollar homes, homeowners are fighting inner-city problems like gangs, drugs, theft and graffiti.

During the boom, the suburb just south of Sacramento sprouted 10,000 homes in four years, attracting investors from the San Francisco area. Now many houses stand empty, weeds overtaking lawns, signs lining the street: “Bank Repo,” “For Rent,” “No trespassing — bank owned property.” A typical home’s value has dropped from about $570,000 to the low $400,000s.

California ranks second in the nation with one foreclosure filing for every 88 households, RealtyTrac said.

The homeowners sometimes have no options but to accept any renters they can get, said Norm Schriever, a local real estate and loan agent.

“You get some bad renters in there and the weeds start growing and a few windows are broken and it starts descending into a feeling of chaos,” he said.

Thieves also have looted some empty homes, stripping them of electrical appliances or valuable copper wiring and pipes that can be sold as scrap, he said.

Banks aren’t watching foreclosed properties closely, said Modesto, Calif., Police Chief Roy Wasden.

“As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures and it’s quite dangerous,” he said.

Franklin Reserve resident Susan McDonald said two of the homes on her block were turned into indoor marijuana farms. Both caught fire last summer after the pot growers tapped into the city’s electric grid with faulty wiring.

But McDonald, who has lived in the community for three years and is president of the residents’ association, jokes that they make better neighbors than some.

“The pot growers, they mow their lawns, they take out their garbage,” said McDonald, an executive at a local bank. “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing the last few years.”

Crime reports in Franklin Reserve rose 45 percent in May, to 100 from 69 in the same month last year, but record-keeping changed when Elk Grove created its own police force in August 2006, said Officer Chris Trim, spokesman for the Elk Grove Police Department

To deter crime, the community policing unit is charged with working with code enforcement officers on problems such as unkempt homes and patrol officers swing past vacant homes as part of their normal duties. But there has been no increase in police budget, overtime or staff as a result of the empty homes.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are doing what they can. One Sunday last month, two dozen church members gathered their lawn mowers and weed trimmers and cleaned up 27 vacant homes.

“We had weeds that were almost eye-level high,” said Steve Steele, pastor of the Tree of Life Community Church. “If no one was home, we just kind of did it good Samaritan style.”
…………..
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071113/vacant_homes_crime.html?.v=1

[bsrsharma]

Empty Houses Home to Crime As Loans Fail

Neighborhoods Suffer As Crime Follows Foreclosures Into Vacant Houses

Eighty-five bungalows dot the cul-de-sac that joins West Ontario Avenue and East Ontario Avenue in Atlanta. Twenty-two are vacant, victims of mortgage fraud and foreclosure. Now house fires, prostitution, vandals and burglaries terrorize the residents left in this historic neighborhood called Westview Village.

“It’s created a safety hazard. And if we have to sell our house tomorrow, we’re out of luck,” said resident Scott Smith. “Real estate agents say to me ‘We’re not redlining you, but I tell my clients to think twice about buying here.'”

As defaults surge on mortgages made to borrowers with spotty credit and adjustable-rate loans, more people are noticing that their neighbors are caught up in the meltdown. Their misfortunes are haunting those left living on the same streets. The effects aren’t confined to just low-income or redeveloping communities; they are seeping into middle-class neighborhoods and brand new developments.

Smith, the vice president of Westview Community Organization Inc., keeps a map of the area, tracking each vacant property and notifying local officials when nefarious activity is suspected.

Georgia has the eighth largest foreclosure rate in the nation, one filing for every 142 households, according to a third-quarter report from foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. Nevada has the worst rate with one filing in every 61 households, while the nationwide rate is one filing for every 196 households.

“They’ve seen a lot of prostitution in the area, vagrants wandering in and out of the empty houses and drug activity,” said Officer Dakarta Richardson of the Atlanta Police Department. “Some people that I talked to are afraid to walk out of their homes at night.”

Some other people in the area have been affected by break-ins, and there have been house fires in several of the vacant homes in the past year, Richardson said.

The rise in crime in Westview is typical of a neighborhood struggling with numerous foreclosures, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute in Chicago.

That study showed that when the foreclosure rate increases one percentage point, neighborhood violent crime rises 2.33 percent.

“The key here is the concentration of those foreclosures at a neighborhood level. When you have more than one foreclosure in a few block area, that’s when you start to think about the effects on property values and the effects on crime,” Immergluck said.

A report published Tuesday by the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, N.C.-based consumer advocate, estimates that 44.5 million U.S. households will see their property values decline a combined $223 billion as foreclosures surge in coming years, particularly in minority communities.

Historically the most affected areas were lower-income and were prone to subprime and predatory lending, irresponsible house flipping and mortgage fraud, Immergluck said.

However, “the problem now is on a different scale,” he said. “It’s affecting a lot more suburban, moderate-income places” as more people of different incomes default on riskier loans.

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, Calif., full of subdivisions with half-million dollar homes, homeowners are fighting inner-city problems like gangs, drugs, theft and graffiti.

During the boom, the suburb just south of Sacramento sprouted 10,000 homes in four years, attracting investors from the San Francisco area. Now many houses stand empty, weeds overtaking lawns, signs lining the street: “Bank Repo,” “For Rent,” “No trespassing — bank owned property.” A typical home’s value has dropped from about $570,000 to the low $400,000s.

California ranks second in the nation with one foreclosure filing for every 88 households, RealtyTrac said.

The homeowners sometimes have no options but to accept any renters they can get, said Norm Schriever, a local real estate and loan agent.

“You get some bad renters in there and the weeds start growing and a few windows are broken and it starts descending into a feeling of chaos,” he said.

Thieves also have looted some empty homes, stripping them of electrical appliances or valuable copper wiring and pipes that can be sold as scrap, he said.

Banks aren’t watching foreclosed properties closely, said Modesto, Calif., Police Chief Roy Wasden.

“As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures and it’s quite dangerous,” he said.

Franklin Reserve resident Susan McDonald said two of the homes on her block were turned into indoor marijuana farms. Both caught fire last summer after the pot growers tapped into the city’s electric grid with faulty wiring.

But McDonald, who has lived in the community for three years and is president of the residents’ association, jokes that they make better neighbors than some.

“The pot growers, they mow their lawns, they take out their garbage,” said McDonald, an executive at a local bank. “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing the last few years.”

Crime reports in Franklin Reserve rose 45 percent in May, to 100 from 69 in the same month last year, but record-keeping changed when Elk Grove created its own police force in August 2006, said Officer Chris Trim, spokesman for the Elk Grove Police Department

To deter crime, the community policing unit is charged with working with code enforcement officers on problems such as unkempt homes and patrol officers swing past vacant homes as part of their normal duties. But there has been no increase in police budget, overtime or staff as a result of the empty homes.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are doing what they can. One Sunday last month, two dozen church members gathered their lawn mowers and weed trimmers and cleaned up 27 vacant homes.

“We had weeds that were almost eye-level high,” said Steve Steele, pastor of the Tree of Life Community Church. “If no one was home, we just kind of did it good Samaritan style.”
…………..
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071113/vacant_homes_crime.html?.v=1

[bsrsharma]

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland’s mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation’s hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 19 2007: 8:29 AM EST

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) — When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland’s working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories.

The first thing that happened after owners moved out of foreclosed homes in Slavic Village was that squatters and looters moved in, according to Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program. “In the inner city, it takes about 72 hours for a house to be looted after it is vacant,” he said.

Walking around the neighborhood, Mark Seifert, director of the East Side Organizing Project pointed out a home he said was still occupied less than two weeks before. The gutters and downspouts were already gone, and trash covered the yard.

Long-time Slavic Village resident Joe Krasucki had celebrated his 78th birthday last spring, when, late in the evening, he heard some noise and went out for a look. Reports said he’d had run-ins with local gangs before. A neighbor’s abandoned house had already been stripped of its aluminum siding and, according to Rokakis, Krasucki thought the looters were back, working on his home. Outside, he was attacked and badly beaten. He died some days later.

After stripping the siding, looters don’t take long to make a vacant property nearly worthless.

“If someone takes the doors, moldings, appliances, it’s bad enough,” said Wiseman. “But once they pull the piping out, it’s all over; they do it with a sledge hammer.”

Putting a house back together takes money, more money than the restored home could bring on the market. And stopgap programs, such as razing derelict houses, aren’t feasible – Cuyahoga County only has a few million dollars available for demolition work, and Wiseman estimates at least $100 million is needed.

Many houses in Slavic Village have had their siding stripped up to the roof lines. A few criminal masterminds even stripped vinyl siding, apparently unaware of the difference in wholesale scrap prices between plastic and metal.

When a house is derelict, people will dump garbage in the yard, rather than pay for haulage. Windows are broken, and doors are stolen, opening up the interior to the elements. In Cleveland’s cold and damp climate, the houses deteriorate quickly. But some not badly enough to keep drug dealers out.

Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas was just 12 years old this past summer when she was gunned down coming out of a Slavic Village candy store, caught in a crossfire from suspected dealers engaged in a drug war. Seifert said one of the alleged shooters was using an abandoned house in the neighborhood as a base.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, five people, including Thomas and Krasucki, have been killed in Slavic Village in the past two years: In July, Grady Smith, 27, was shot outside his home while working on his car. In Nov. 2006, Roman Grasela, 71, died of blows to his head after his house was broken into. And in October 2005, Therese Szelugowski, 76, died weeks after falling and hitting her head after she was mugged.

Some Slavic Village home owners, still hoping to salvage something out of houses they have vacated, have installed stout doors on entryways with thick locks. They board up windows with three-quarter-inch, exterior-grade plywood.

Others attempt to thwart looters by advertising the lack of anything of value inside. They paint signs saying: “No copper, No wiring, PVC.”

Residents have tried to fight back, organizing neighborhood watch groups and lobbying the police, who, many feel, are too often missing in action.

Seifert pointed out an open, empty lot on one block that had been used by car thieves for months and months to store and strip parts from stolen cars. It took a concerted effort by a local group called “Bring Back the 70’s” (which refers to the street numbers in the neighborhood) to get the police to clear the lot of the thieves.

But as the number of empty lots and abandoned houses grows where houses and residents were once packed in a tight community, there are fewer and fewer neighbors to fight the battle.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

[bsrsharma]

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland’s mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation’s hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 19 2007: 8:29 AM EST

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) — When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland’s working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories.

The first thing that happened after owners moved out of foreclosed homes in Slavic Village was that squatters and looters moved in, according to Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program. “In the inner city, it takes about 72 hours for a house to be looted after it is vacant,” he said.

Walking around the neighborhood, Mark Seifert, director of the East Side Organizing Project pointed out a home he said was still occupied less than two weeks before. The gutters and downspouts were already gone, and trash covered the yard.

Long-time Slavic Village resident Joe Krasucki had celebrated his 78th birthday last spring, when, late in the evening, he heard some noise and went out for a look. Reports said he’d had run-ins with local gangs before. A neighbor’s abandoned house had already been stripped of its aluminum siding and, according to Rokakis, Krasucki thought the looters were back, working on his home. Outside, he was attacked and badly beaten. He died some days later.

After stripping the siding, looters don’t take long to make a vacant property nearly worthless.

“If someone takes the doors, moldings, appliances, it’s bad enough,” said Wiseman. “But once they pull the piping out, it’s all over; they do it with a sledge hammer.”

Putting a house back together takes money, more money than the restored home could bring on the market. And stopgap programs, such as razing derelict houses, aren’t feasible – Cuyahoga County only has a few million dollars available for demolition work, and Wiseman estimates at least $100 million is needed.

Many houses in Slavic Village have had their siding stripped up to the roof lines. A few criminal masterminds even stripped vinyl siding, apparently unaware of the difference in wholesale scrap prices between plastic and metal.

When a house is derelict, people will dump garbage in the yard, rather than pay for haulage. Windows are broken, and doors are stolen, opening up the interior to the elements. In Cleveland’s cold and damp climate, the houses deteriorate quickly. But some not badly enough to keep drug dealers out.

Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas was just 12 years old this past summer when she was gunned down coming out of a Slavic Village candy store, caught in a crossfire from suspected dealers engaged in a drug war. Seifert said one of the alleged shooters was using an abandoned house in the neighborhood as a base.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, five people, including Thomas and Krasucki, have been killed in Slavic Village in the past two years: In July, Grady Smith, 27, was shot outside his home while working on his car. In Nov. 2006, Roman Grasela, 71, died of blows to his head after his house was broken into. And in October 2005, Therese Szelugowski, 76, died weeks after falling and hitting her head after she was mugged.

Some Slavic Village home owners, still hoping to salvage something out of houses they have vacated, have installed stout doors on entryways with thick locks. They board up windows with three-quarter-inch, exterior-grade plywood.

Others attempt to thwart looters by advertising the lack of anything of value inside. They paint signs saying: “No copper, No wiring, PVC.”

Residents have tried to fight back, organizing neighborhood watch groups and lobbying the police, who, many feel, are too often missing in action.

Seifert pointed out an open, empty lot on one block that had been used by car thieves for months and months to store and strip parts from stolen cars. It took a concerted effort by a local group called “Bring Back the 70’s” (which refers to the street numbers in the neighborhood) to get the police to clear the lot of the thieves.

But as the number of empty lots and abandoned houses grows where houses and residents were once packed in a tight community, there are fewer and fewer neighbors to fight the battle.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

[bsrsharma]

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland’s mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation’s hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 19 2007: 8:29 AM EST

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) — When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland’s working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories.

The first thing that happened after owners moved out of foreclosed homes in Slavic Village was that squatters and looters moved in, according to Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program. “In the inner city, it takes about 72 hours for a house to be looted after it is vacant,” he said.

Walking around the neighborhood, Mark Seifert, director of the East Side Organizing Project pointed out a home he said was still occupied less than two weeks before. The gutters and downspouts were already gone, and trash covered the yard.

Long-time Slavic Village resident Joe Krasucki had celebrated his 78th birthday last spring, when, late in the evening, he heard some noise and went out for a look. Reports said he’d had run-ins with local gangs before. A neighbor’s abandoned house had already been stripped of its aluminum siding and, according to Rokakis, Krasucki thought the looters were back, working on his home. Outside, he was attacked and badly beaten. He died some days later.

After stripping the siding, looters don’t take long to make a vacant property nearly worthless.

“If someone takes the doors, moldings, appliances, it’s bad enough,” said Wiseman. “But once they pull the piping out, it’s all over; they do it with a sledge hammer.”

Putting a house back together takes money, more money than the restored home could bring on the market. And stopgap programs, such as razing derelict houses, aren’t feasible – Cuyahoga County only has a few million dollars available for demolition work, and Wiseman estimates at least $100 million is needed.

Many houses in Slavic Village have had their siding stripped up to the roof lines. A few criminal masterminds even stripped vinyl siding, apparently unaware of the difference in wholesale scrap prices between plastic and metal.

When a house is derelict, people will dump garbage in the yard, rather than pay for haulage. Windows are broken, and doors are stolen, opening up the interior to the elements. In Cleveland’s cold and damp climate, the houses deteriorate quickly. But some not badly enough to keep drug dealers out.

Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas was just 12 years old this past summer when she was gunned down coming out of a Slavic Village candy store, caught in a crossfire from suspected dealers engaged in a drug war. Seifert said one of the alleged shooters was using an abandoned house in the neighborhood as a base.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, five people, including Thomas and Krasucki, have been killed in Slavic Village in the past two years: In July, Grady Smith, 27, was shot outside his home while working on his car. In Nov. 2006, Roman Grasela, 71, died of blows to his head after his house was broken into. And in October 2005, Therese Szelugowski, 76, died weeks after falling and hitting her head after she was mugged.

Some Slavic Village home owners, still hoping to salvage something out of houses they have vacated, have installed stout doors on entryways with thick locks. They board up windows with three-quarter-inch, exterior-grade plywood.

Others attempt to thwart looters by advertising the lack of anything of value inside. They paint signs saying: “No copper, No wiring, PVC.”

Residents have tried to fight back, organizing neighborhood watch groups and lobbying the police, who, many feel, are too often missing in action.

Seifert pointed out an open, empty lot on one block that had been used by car thieves for months and months to store and strip parts from stolen cars. It took a concerted effort by a local group called “Bring Back the 70’s” (which refers to the street numbers in the neighborhood) to get the police to clear the lot of the thieves.

But as the number of empty lots and abandoned houses grows where houses and residents were once packed in a tight community, there are fewer and fewer neighbors to fight the battle.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

[bsrsharma]

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland’s mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation’s hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 19 2007: 8:29 AM EST

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) — When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland’s working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories.

The first thing that happened after owners moved out of foreclosed homes in Slavic Village was that squatters and looters moved in, according to Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program. “In the inner city, it takes about 72 hours for a house to be looted after it is vacant,” he said.

Walking around the neighborhood, Mark Seifert, director of the East Side Organizing Project pointed out a home he said was still occupied less than two weeks before. The gutters and downspouts were already gone, and trash covered the yard.

Long-time Slavic Village resident Joe Krasucki had celebrated his 78th birthday last spring, when, late in the evening, he heard some noise and went out for a look. Reports said he’d had run-ins with local gangs before. A neighbor’s abandoned house had already been stripped of its aluminum siding and, according to Rokakis, Krasucki thought the looters were back, working on his home. Outside, he was attacked and badly beaten. He died some days later.

After stripping the siding, looters don’t take long to make a vacant property nearly worthless.

“If someone takes the doors, moldings, appliances, it’s bad enough,” said Wiseman. “But once they pull the piping out, it’s all over; they do it with a sledge hammer.”

Putting a house back together takes money, more money than the restored home could bring on the market. And stopgap programs, such as razing derelict houses, aren’t feasible – Cuyahoga County only has a few million dollars available for demolition work, and Wiseman estimates at least $100 million is needed.

Many houses in Slavic Village have had their siding stripped up to the roof lines. A few criminal masterminds even stripped vinyl siding, apparently unaware of the difference in wholesale scrap prices between plastic and metal.

When a house is derelict, people will dump garbage in the yard, rather than pay for haulage. Windows are broken, and doors are stolen, opening up the interior to the elements. In Cleveland’s cold and damp climate, the houses deteriorate quickly. But some not badly enough to keep drug dealers out.

Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas was just 12 years old this past summer when she was gunned down coming out of a Slavic Village candy store, caught in a crossfire from suspected dealers engaged in a drug war. Seifert said one of the alleged shooters was using an abandoned house in the neighborhood as a base.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, five people, including Thomas and Krasucki, have been killed in Slavic Village in the past two years: In July, Grady Smith, 27, was shot outside his home while working on his car. In Nov. 2006, Roman Grasela, 71, died of blows to his head after his house was broken into. And in October 2005, Therese Szelugowski, 76, died weeks after falling and hitting her head after she was mugged.

Some Slavic Village home owners, still hoping to salvage something out of houses they have vacated, have installed stout doors on entryways with thick locks. They board up windows with three-quarter-inch, exterior-grade plywood.

Others attempt to thwart looters by advertising the lack of anything of value inside. They paint signs saying: “No copper, No wiring, PVC.”

Residents have tried to fight back, organizing neighborhood watch groups and lobbying the police, who, many feel, are too often missing in action.

Seifert pointed out an open, empty lot on one block that had been used by car thieves for months and months to store and strip parts from stolen cars. It took a concerted effort by a local group called “Bring Back the 70’s” (which refers to the street numbers in the neighborhood) to get the police to clear the lot of the thieves.

But as the number of empty lots and abandoned houses grows where houses and residents were once packed in a tight community, there are fewer and fewer neighbors to fight the battle.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

[bsrsharma]

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland’s mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation’s hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 19 2007: 8:29 AM EST

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) — When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland’s working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories.

The first thing that happened after owners moved out of foreclosed homes in Slavic Village was that squatters and looters moved in, according to Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program. “In the inner city, it takes about 72 hours for a house to be looted after it is vacant,” he said.

Walking around the neighborhood, Mark Seifert, director of the East Side Organizing Project pointed out a home he said was still occupied less than two weeks before. The gutters and downspouts were already gone, and trash covered the yard.

Long-time Slavic Village resident Joe Krasucki had celebrated his 78th birthday last spring, when, late in the evening, he heard some noise and went out for a look. Reports said he’d had run-ins with local gangs before. A neighbor’s abandoned house had already been stripped of its aluminum siding and, according to Rokakis, Krasucki thought the looters were back, working on his home. Outside, he was attacked and badly beaten. He died some days later.

After stripping the siding, looters don’t take long to make a vacant property nearly worthless.

“If someone takes the doors, moldings, appliances, it’s bad enough,” said Wiseman. “But once they pull the piping out, it’s all over; they do it with a sledge hammer.”

Putting a house back together takes money, more money than the restored home could bring on the market. And stopgap programs, such as razing derelict houses, aren’t feasible – Cuyahoga County only has a few million dollars available for demolition work, and Wiseman estimates at least $100 million is needed.

Many houses in Slavic Village have had their siding stripped up to the roof lines. A few criminal masterminds even stripped vinyl siding, apparently unaware of the difference in wholesale scrap prices between plastic and metal.

When a house is derelict, people will dump garbage in the yard, rather than pay for haulage. Windows are broken, and doors are stolen, opening up the interior to the elements. In Cleveland’s cold and damp climate, the houses deteriorate quickly. But some not badly enough to keep drug dealers out.

Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas was just 12 years old this past summer when she was gunned down coming out of a Slavic Village candy store, caught in a crossfire from suspected dealers engaged in a drug war. Seifert said one of the alleged shooters was using an abandoned house in the neighborhood as a base.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, five people, including Thomas and Krasucki, have been killed in Slavic Village in the past two years: In July, Grady Smith, 27, was shot outside his home while working on his car. In Nov. 2006, Roman Grasela, 71, died of blows to his head after his house was broken into. And in October 2005, Therese Szelugowski, 76, died weeks after falling and hitting her head after she was mugged.

Some Slavic Village home owners, still hoping to salvage something out of houses they have vacated, have installed stout doors on entryways with thick locks. They board up windows with three-quarter-inch, exterior-grade plywood.

Others attempt to thwart looters by advertising the lack of anything of value inside. They paint signs saying: “No copper, No wiring, PVC.”

Residents have tried to fight back, organizing neighborhood watch groups and lobbying the police, who, many feel, are too often missing in action.

Seifert pointed out an open, empty lot on one block that had been used by car thieves for months and months to store and strip parts from stolen cars. It took a concerted effort by a local group called “Bring Back the 70’s” (which refers to the street numbers in the neighborhood) to get the police to clear the lot of the thieves.

But as the number of empty lots and abandoned houses grows where houses and residents were once packed in a tight community, there are fewer and fewer neighbors to fight the battle.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

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