Course Being Offered For Foreclosure Victims

Posted in Foreclosure Victims, February 20th, 2008 |

Oakdale Neighbours is a group working in tandem with Macatawa Bank. It has organized a twelve week course for those who are facing foreclosures. The Oakdale area is losing houses and house owners to foreclosures much faster than any other city A recent survey conducted by Community Research Institute of Grand Valley State University show that Oakdale together with two adjacent regions in Grand Rapids had foreclosure rates hovering around 16.2% during the years 2004 to 2007. To tackle the menace the group is joining up with Macatawa Bank to initiate a 12 week course dealing with finance. It has been termed The Money Map. The free sessions scheduled to operate from 20th February will include in its curriculum many facets of personal money matters like budgeting, borrowing, banking, purchasing money to buy a house, dangers of predatory lending and the like. Macatawa Bank is sending out invitations to the participants to open savings account by offering to match savings by 50% - going up to $150. Tom Bulten is the executive director of Oakdale Neighbours. He explains that by joining the course the participants will get first hand knowledge about how to budget income with expenses as well as get to know about the financial system. This will be their armour in times of financial crisis.

One strong view about the causes of the foreclosure crisis is that the borrowers who took the risky sub-prime loans did not know and were not aware of the implications of such deals. The lenders took advantage of this ignorance and peddled the loans to these gullible borrowers. Now that foreclosures are knocking at their door it is ignorance that is again letting them down. They do not know how to face the foreclosure tornado and plug the leaks. Organizations like Oakdale Neighbours are trying to fill the gap and make the people more aware – more financially literate. Statistics say that the foreclosures are most rampant in localities where the residents have modest income and are not fluent in English. Senior citizens and the handicapped too have been easy victims. Foreclosures are vitiating neighbourhoods by spreading crime and disease. Taxes too are falling crippling the power of the state to enforce law and order as well as fight fires. Vagrants are having a field day to the horror of all. The general economy is beginning to creak with ominous pointers towards recession.