The innumerable abandoned foreclosed houses are attracting criminal activities. The administration has had to clamp down curfew to keep gangs off the streets. It is part of the strategy adopted by the city to stop the houses from being burnt down during the three Halloween nights otherwise known as Angels Night.
The police are determined to keep off the streets the young aged below 18 after 10 p.m. But a more strict emergency measure will take off from 6 p.m. All the steps are targeted to see that the young stay within the safe confines of their residences. Halloween curfew takes off from 10 p.m.

The office of the Mayor Dave Bing sent out a release stating that if any minor was seen on “any public street, sidewalk, alley, park, playground, vacant lot or any other unsupervised outdoor public place, or in any arcade, billiard or pool hall, bowling alley, restaurant, theatre, or place of amusement or entertainment” would be detained and fined by the police.
In previous years the law breakers were kept back by the police until they were collected by the guardians. Gary Brown, former Deputy Police Chief commented “We spend too many resources baby-sitting kids, and if we can limit that, then the police officers can be out doing other things. I thought that was just a waste of valuable resource.”

Eighteen candidates for Detroit City Council including Brown conferred with Bing on Wednesday 28th October to step up anti-arson efforts. The meeting is an annual event. There are five sitting councilors and 13 challengers who are campaigning for 9 open-seats in the general elections to be held the following week.

Bing is being challenged by Tom Barrow. He asked the candidates to put aside all political wrangling and join the volunteers to patrol the neighbourhoods of Detroit on the nights of Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Bing was hopeful of gathering together volunteers numbering 50,000. He said, “We’re asking our angels to come out this weekend to help us prevent anything negative as it relates to fires in our city”

Traditionally 30th October is observed as Devil’s Night – it being marked by fun and pranks laced with mischief. But from the 80’s it has taken an ugly turn with the Halloween revelers using this pretext to set fire to empty houses and properties all through Detroit. In 1984 there were 800 fire outbreaks. Volunteer patrolling has been able to bring down the numbers.

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Florida and other places in America wrecked by foreclosures are facing the problem of treating abandoned pools left behind in vacant foreclosed houses. The pools have become stagnant choked with algae. It is resulting in breeding of mosquitoes and other disease spreading insects.

The code enforcement officials in Wellington were one of the first to experiment with a certain type of fish named pleco. In appearance they look like catfish. They are adept at feasting on algae and in the process clearing pools. This has led to booming business for Bartow fish farmer David Hoy. He has teamed with the aquaculture department of University of Florida to make a success of the project of cleaning pools with these janitor fish.
Initially a limited number of fish of a certain size are used. Hoy explained, “You don’t want to get too many fish in there, because when they purge, they’ll just create another mess. We don’t want that. With just 15, the waste will dissipate in the water. It eventually breaks down in a natural bacterial process and goes away.”

It takes a minimum of 6 weeks for the fish to clear the first lot of algae. The success has led officials in Wellington to phase out projects that used chemicals to clean the pools. It had other harmful side effects apart from being less effective. Rose Taliau of Wellington’s code enforcement department said, “It’s evident to us that these fish will control the algae and make the odor go away. And once we put the fish in, that’s it. We just periodically check on them to make sure everything is going well, but we’re not out there putting chemicals in every other week.”

The fish are kept in the pools until the property changes hands. It does not require any regular maintenance cost. Hoy charges an initial fee ranging from $500 to $1,000 depending on the number of pools he has to tackle at one time. The fee is inclusive of time spent in commuting and expenses of staying in Palm Beach County. The fees would be less for destinations nearer to his base. Talking about his work Hoy said, “I just take the fish down there, let them loose, and they do the rest.”

The word about Hoy’s project is spreading and has reached the ears of Polk County’s officials. Here the numbers of abandoned swimming pools have doubled in the previous two years.

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The Board of Alderman of Melrose is mulling over plans to pass an ordinance that would financially penalize lenders by imposing an annual fine to the extent of $3,000 for neglecting foreclosed properties. The ordinance suggestion is being given a review by Appropriations Committee of the board. Its target is to clear the neighbourhood of foreclosure blight like unkempt gardens, boarded windows and stagnant pools.

Alderman of Ward 7, William Forbes said, “Our goal here is not the vacant property. Our goal is to protect the rights of abutters.”

Dexter Road is cursed with three foreclosed houses and the residents are worried about these eyesores. It is having an effect on all those living in the street. Joseph Arcadipane a resident on Dexter Road said that these deserted units have become a question of public safety. He said, “We need something that will force them to maintain properties.”

The suggested ordinance will be applicable to all the lenders holding mortgages. It will enable the city authorities to better track the lenders who live in outside states. The ordinance would make it mandatory for the lenders to register the empty property with the Inspectional Services Department within a fortnight of the foreclosure. A registration fee of $250 would be charged. But from then the fee scale would spike relating to how long the unit would lie vacant. The charges would range from $500 for a property kept vacant for less than a year to $1,000 for a unit lying vacant from one to two years. For those lying vacant for two to three years the charge would go up to $2,000 and $3,000.

The ordinance if passed would impose a fine of $300 for three types of offenses – failure to have the property registered, failure to give proper details of the management company maintaining the estate and the failure of looking after it.

City Solicitor Rober Van Campen drafted the ordinance and is still going over the language to ensure that it does not infringe upon state and the federal banking laws or the laws relating to the rights of tenants.

Peter Mortimer, the Alderman of Ward 6 and chairperson of the Appropriations Committee said, “We want it crafted so that it will be effective. We don’t want it to be subject to a legal challenge.” He clarified that the ordinance would be applicable only to those units that were vacant and foreclosed and not to those foreclosed houses that were occupied by tenants even after auction. He said, “There are two prongs – it must be vacant and foreclosed.”

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The unfolding of the foreclosure saga has left behind a trail of horror in New England. Windows have been shattered and walls marred by graffiti. Plywood has warped and everywhere there is a stench of decay. This is the common scene thousands of baseball enthusiasts witness as they pass through South Main.
A little distance to the east Ed and Lisa Basigalup work hard at landscaping trying to spruce up their three bed-room house on Sheffield Drive that they had purchased five years previously after experiencing foreclosure. But the newly laid bed of flowers and decorated sidewalk was dwarfed by the ugly shadows of neighbouring foreclosed houses. Just three houses away stands St. Thomas Aquinas School – an old building standing on 80,000 sq ft – boarded up and ghostly amidst a yard covered with filth and weeds. This is known as the blight the bureaucrats are talking about.
Ed said, “The police get called there, there was a fire inside just a couple weeks ago, there were guys going in back to rip down the gutters that I had to chase off. The neighbors here try to keep things up — one of them even went and cut the grass there when it got bad. It’s a pride issue with us. But there’s only so much you can do.”

Those living near these blighted eyesores know how the entire block takes on a dreary look because of them. There are fears that the rot will spread and spill over. Timothy Stewart the mayor who has been living here since childhood drives around the old school inspecting the hazards of fire. He also knows how quickly these abandoned house premises can turn into dumping grounds and become haunts for thieves, trespassers, drug peddlers and prostitutes with their pimps.

From this September a new law is being enforced that Stewart feel will punish absentee landlords and slumlords to clean up their units. The new regulations will do so something more than just impose fines. By it the city will override the owners who ignore notices and send their own crew to clear up the mess and do the necessary repairs. The bill would be then sent to the owners. Stewart explained, “It’s called ‘Clean and Lien, and it’s another tool to go after these people.”

Measures akin to this has been tried out in different place – Maryland, California, Arkansas, Massachusetts and Florida. Some have succeeded while others have failed. The failures have largely been due to lack of funds when the administration could not pay the workers.

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With the situation slipping from bad to worse the people are taking the matter into their own hands. More foreclosed vacant houses are becoming homes to the homeless. The movement is often headed by organized groups.

Women in Transition in Louisville is one such group. They hunt out properties that can be occupied after being frustrated in their efforts to find affordable housing. The over supply of empty houses are the perfect answer to their problems.

Metro Atlanta Task Force for the homeless is represented by Anita Beaty. Her group has been asking the banks to hand over buildings that have been abandoned so they can refurbish it and have them occupied without breaking the law.

Cheri Honkal leading Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign in Minnesota was herself once a squatter. She recalls that previously neighbours used to raise a hue and cry about breaking the law but that attitude has now changed. Now the neighbours come forward to help with bedding and food.

Ben Burton of Miami Coalition for the Homeless said till recently squatting was an unknown thing in the city.

Max Rameau of Take Back the Land said competitions are surfacing between organized and non-organized squatters. There are squatters taking over their squat. Rameau said that his group openly operated sifting out the sand from the sugar – the insane, drug addicts and the like. The people moving in would have to sweat it out by doing the repairs and paying utility fees. They replace the locks when they drive in through the front gate. The families are given the key. Most of these happen in poor localities where the neighbours are not likely to protest.

Kelly Penton the Director of Communications said that the police needed a signed affidavit from the owner of the property, usually a bank, before they can evict squatters. If this happens the group starts looking once more for another house to shift the floating population.

Rameau and his peers hunt through foreclosure listings to find the suitable properties. Then they inspect the damages. Often they find that even locks are not in place. Inside all the fittings have been stripped off and the floors full of ashes – remnants of a fire made with a discarded telephone book to fight a cold wintry night. So far Ramneau has shifted ten families. Per moving in the cost is $200.

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This is one of the most challenging phases in the American economy. The real estate industry is in doldrums and the housing sector is riddled with foreclosures. Prices have plunged to an all-time low. Across York County, the number of houses recorded for sale increased by a whopping 80.3 per cent — from 706 four years ago to 1273 in 2008. If the current trend continues, the number of houses for sale will touch 1412 in 2009.

However, York does not have many foreclosures like other regions in the US. According to reports available with the Sheriff’s Department, most of the foreclosures were from North and West York. In York City, there were 667 foreclosure filings and Hanover had 345. Experts agree that foreclosures happen because of a number of factors. The primary factor is, of course, unemployment. As people lose jobs they are faltering on mortgage payments. After a series of missed payments, banks are taking over the properties.

The CEO of Realtors Association of York and Adams Counties, Steve Snell, says that foreclosures are rampant. Be it expensive or not so top-notch, foreclosures seemed to have hit every category hard. In York, entire neighborhoods may not have been hit hard but the situation is not too good. Many are losing homes either because of divorce or because they have lost jobs. Housing Alliance has conducted a survey about why people are defaulting on mortgage payments. The primary reasons cited are joblessness, plunging income, health issues and increase in loan. There are other reasons too like death, divorce, failure in business and shabby money management.
Whatever be the reason, it cannot be denied that York’s housing market is already riddled with “short-sales” homes. A short sale happens when an owner knows he is in trouble and sells the property at a price which is lower than what he owes to the bank. Such a home can be a blessing to the first-time buyer in search of a bargain.

Snell says that such a home can indeed be an eyesore because a person who couldn’t pay loan could not maintain the property also. Most have even walked away from their homes and the condition inside the homes is pathetic, to say the least. A couple who was looking for a property at a low price had found one in West York whose condition was really bad. The carpet was torn and the kitchen was grimy to say the least.

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Foreclosed Cleveland is gasping to survive but efforts are on to turn the tide. Federal help is coming through to purchase and renovate foreclosed houses but Cleveland wanted help to demolish properties and clean the region of the mess and give Cleveland a new look. Cleveland is trying to make the banks agree to get rid of their units and allow for the razing of the same. The banks are being asked to give up many foreclosed units in the suburbs so that the county can spruce them up before selling or renting.
Minneapolis, Youngstown, Detroit and Cincinnati have earmarked about a third of the funds received from Neighborhood Stabilization for demolition. Joe Shilling of National Vacant Properties Campaign said, “As properties stay vacant for longer periods of time it’s inevitable that even in some of the fast-growing communities, they’ll have to look at demolition.” Phoenix plans to use a quarter of the granted funds to bring down the derelict houses.

HUD together with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac control about thousand vacant estates in Cleveland. There is simmering anger because the houses are being sold without informing the new buyers that these have been marked for demolition. The buyers are attracted by the absurdly cheap rates and find out the truth only when it is too late.

Today Councilman Zachary Reed of Cleveland City is a harassed man attending to innumerable complaints related in some direct or indirect way to the foreclosure mess. There are phone calls coming in of frightened residents scared of vagrants and trespassers in neighbouring houses. Reed bemoaned, “If we don’t get some help we’re going to turn into a third-world nation.”
There were no doubts by the middle of 2007 that Cleveland was at the total mercy of bankers and lenders as well as real estate wholesalers. The latter had snapped up thousands of vacant houses. The city was keen to hold these land barons accountable for the vacant properties that continued to rot in a state of disrepair.

Cleveland has a single housing court that is referred to by many as the Rat-Court as its primary work is to ensure that the owners trim their gardens, hedges, clean trash and repair dangerously leaning porches and gutters. The basic idea was to see that the houses do not become havens for rats. But today this Rat-Court can no longer be looked down upon – it is the only weapon the city has to get the offenders face court strictures.

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The potential buyers can get all the information they require from the Internet and or from realtors. It is best to make a check on the locality before buying. If there are many foreclosures in the neighbourhood then it will make life difficult for occupants. Those planning to rent out the house should check the local rental market. If there are too many units searching for renters then there is the possibility that the house will have to remain empty for quite some time. Too many empty foreclosed homes may mean that these too may soon become rentals also.

Julie Bieganski is a realtor. She advises looking into other homes in the same block and to check on schools, road-rail connectivity and shopping facilities. Her suggestion is to look for the ugliest in the block.

Brett Barry of Realty Executives said, “You are going to find the real deals on the homes with the most (physical) damage in the neighborhoods with the highest foreclosure rates. Those are the homes that draw the multiple offers.” He opined that banks are reluctant to spend above $20,000 to refurbish the foreclosed units. The more the house is damaged the more is the discount. Some of the units have been stripped of fittings and fixtures including tiles and even the toilets by the former occupants and later by the vandals.

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According to city officials the conditions of the programme have been so stringent that only two families have been able to get help.

The plan offers assistance up to $10,000 to anyone defaulting. Anyone who has already lost a house to foreclosure could get $3,000 as funds towards paying for rental security and advance. But it is not easy to qualify for the help funds. It requires applicant to prove that they will be able to continue with mortgage payments after receiving help.

Councilwoman Diane Veltri Bendekovic said, "If my understanding of the guidelines is correct, how does an unemployed applicant have the resources to make payments on their home?" The assistant mayor of Plantation Daniel Keefe echoes the same sentiments. He said, "The program is not very effective due to the stringent qualification criteria."

A private company named Community Redevelopment Associates of Florida was appointed to manage and distribute the fund of $762,840 as grant from State Housing Initiatives Partnership. CRAF has to strictly following guidelines laid down by the state and the feds to see proper usage of the money. Keefe added, "While it may seem heartless that we can’t assist a family behind on mortgage payments because of a lost job, if they can’t continue to make mortgage payments in the future because of that job loss, we’ve only put off the inevitable by assisting them".

Shekeria Brown of CRAF argued that the low response was due to the grim economic situation. She said, "When we started the program, there were many cases of mortgage adjustments, but now, fast-forward a year, we’re seeing a lot of people calling us after losing their job. Last year it was more about [adjustable-rate mortgage] adjusting; now there’s a lot of people who lost their jobs and lost their income for a few months."

Those applying would have to prove that they failed to meet the previous due payments because of loss of income, divorce, death, unexpected illness or sudden essential repairs to the house. Those applying for funds for rental purposes have to prove that they have recently been foreclosed upon and need shelter.

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Those Americans who have crossed 55 are most susceptible to the economic pressure because they do not have much time at hand to recover losses. For the elders housing is an important issue – especially for those whose incomes are fixed.

The most direct kind of help for the seniors is coming in the form of at a time payment of $250 for nearly 55 million individuals who avail of Supplemental Security Income or Social Security. They are expected to receive it by the end of May. They are free to use the money for anything relating to rent or paying mortgage instalments.

The money will bring relief for the senior owners of houses who spend on an average $571 per month for housing – taxes and utilities. The housing expenses depend largely on the locale of the residence. Thus for many the sum may seem paltry. One out of four elderly persons spend 30% of their monthly earnings on housing related expenses.

The good news is that about 70% of the house owners who have crossed 65 years own their houses totally and are free from mortgage bindings. For others the equity might come to be a blessing that will provide them with another house even after surrendering of the present one.

The stimulus plan increased the loan limits for a reverse mortgage to $625,500 from the previous amount of $417,000. Higher loans means higher monthly remittances for the elders But when the equity drops so too does the amount that they can borrow. When the borrower dies the house is sold by the lender to get back the loaned amount.

Reverse mortgages is not without pitfalls. Experts opine that it should be resorted to as a last option because of high costs and interest.

Apart from reverse mortgages the plan also grants $4 billion toward Public Housing Capital Fund. By this money will be given to public agencies that own or run low-income housing projects. Sadly many of the renters are senior elders.

Renters comprise of one fifth of those above 65 years of age. Over half of these renters are spending 30% (or even more) on their housing expenses according to census.

Another measure that will greatly help the elderly is granting of funds for AARP’s Senior Community Service Employment Program. By it the older workers can avail of training so as to be qualified to enter again the job market.

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