Squalor, crime follow wave of foreclosures

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

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.

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



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21773482/

[villager]

1. Your banks: Making your communities wonderful!

n/t

[Beerboy]

9. Yup. Saving up to pay cash-on-the-barrelhead

for Home Sweet Home is the way to go!

[ret5hd]

11. Maybe expecting a banker to do his job isn't too much to expect.

[Beerboy]

17. I don't disagree w/ you @ all, n/t.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. So, if +1% Foreclosure=+2.3% violent crime, what happens when foreclosures are up 200%?

I think I read that in some areas, it's as high as a 400% increase in foreclosures!

[Javaman]

8. Think, "escape from new york". nt

[stillcool]

3. shocking...

when people lose everything they resort to crime? Who would have thunk it!

[ohio2007]

4. fallout from the burst bubble

these loan officers would give a mortgage to anybody that could scribble a signiture and come up with cash for a month or two

[LeftHander]

14. WRONG....republican congress and admin relaxed tons of regulations...

Not a bubble...it was really the Neocons in a feeding frenzy chewing up the poor to feed the rich...

[ohio2007]

18. And who gave the OK to sign off on and give loans to people that couldn't afford interest only l

loans?
oh
but the 'progressive' thinking BACK THEN was stop suppressing the poor and give them equal housing opportunities



<crickets>

they've all moved on to different PROGRESSIVE crusades ;)

[L0oniX]

5. On top of that Atlanta is about to run out of water

[louis-t]

6. That IS redlining, by the way, Mr. Realtor.

Telling someone not to buy in a certain neighborhood. And it's illegal.

[fasttense]

7. Some of these foreclosures (probably all of them) were NOT Legal.

Seems a court ruling in Ohio has determined:

"This court order is what I have been saying in my cases. This is rampant fraud on every court in America or nonjudicial foreclosure fraud where the securitized trusts are filing foreclosures when they never own/hold the mortgage loan at the commencement of the foreclosure.

That means that the loans are clearly in default at the time of any eventual transfer of the ownership of the mortgage loans to the trusts. This means that the loans are being held by the originating lenders after the alleged "sale" to the trust despite what it says per the pooling and servicing agreements and despite what the securities laws require.

This also means that many securitized trusts don't really, legally own these bad loans.

In my cases, many of the trusts try to argue equitable assignment that predates the filing of the foreclosure, but a securitized trust cannot take an equitable assignment of a mortgage loan. It also means that the securitized trusts own nothing."

Seems a securitized trust own part of the income from the property but have not rights to the property itself and therefore have no right to foreclose.

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com/article/20071113_Boyko/01.html

Thank Buttercup McToots for the link. Very interesting reading.

[redqueen]

10. No spillover?

*sigh*

[Doctor_J]

12. those families could sure use their share of the War Fund

This phenomenon is going to continue to grow for at least two more years. We need a new civil war to completely realign our economy, media, and political balance. Hopefully these atlantans will wake up and vote for sanity next fall.

[LeftHander]

13. Fallout of years of Republican congressional rule.....

They handed banking and lending lobbyists everything they wanted.

Stripped protections away that basically created the usurious environment we have today...18-30% interest...with little warning. Miss a credit card payment and BOOM your rates skyrocket.

They allowed financial marketers to run your credit rating without permission by automatically opting you in every year. You have to keep opting out of targeted offers based on your credit score.

They took away bankruptcy protection because the banks asked for it. People racked so much debt in credit cards as they jumped form one to another paying off cards and finding a endless cycle of hidden fees and outrageous interest rates.It wasn't that the credit card companies were losing money...it was that they could make SO MUCH MORE money by taking bankruptcy protection away from people who really needed it.

Predatory lending, usury, undisclosed fees, pages of fine print, continuous offers of easy to grant loans with high interest rates trapped low income and undereducated people into a cycle of financial ruin that allowed 140,000,000 people to have as much wealth as two billionaires.

[libodem]

15. Only seems to be a logical consequence

I had just never thought of it before. Very interesting. A modern Anthropological/Sociological study in the making. More suffering brought to you each morning by, Capt. Howdy bush and Co.

[IronLionZion]

16. Bush and the GOP are big supporters of this bullshit

I would cringe every time they boasted that "homeownership is up". They would say that everytime anyone mentioned anything about the US economy. Assholes. It's all just a cruel hoax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_lending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Subprime_mortgage_financial_crisis