Foreclosure Crisis: The Community Pitches In To Save The Wicket From Foreclosures

October 9th, 2007

Foreclosure attacks are on a fast pace. The fielders are closing in for the kill. Wickets are falling but suddenly a stand is being made. The community is joining hands in Butler County to keep alight home fires in their own houses.

The line of strategy taken by county officials is to educate the borrowers to be financially literate. Workshops are being organized, says County Treasurer, Nancy Nix, to enforce Save Our Homes programmes and expedite correlated action between the various agencies dealing in this matter in the county. The bottom line is ‘arming the people with information’ opines Nix.

She is thinking of taking on a part time help for the time being to plan and start off the operations. The person of her choice is Ann Mort who retired from Middletown Convention and Visitor’s Bureau as its Executive Director. The need of the hour is help from all available quarters.

Nix will also acquaint commissioners with the current ongoing plans to kick off forcefully the programmes of Save Our Homes. It was first initiated by Treasurer Richard Cordray and has successfully extended to more than 30 counties in Ohio.

Butler County targets to commence with it from this November. The added advantage is that support is got in the form of manpower and materials from the office of the Treasury.

Butler County is tackling 556 foreclosures – with 144, 124 and 53 in Middletown, Hamilton and West Chester respectively. Foreclosures have been on a steady rise in this region and going up by 88%. In 2006 it rose to 2,580 from 1,370 foreclosure listings in 2001. The figures have been released by Policy Matters, Ohio. As regards percentage, foreclosures in the county are behind other bigger Ohio counties like Summit, Hamilton, Cuyahoga. The research is being conducted by nonpartisan organizations. However they add that because of double filings, the data collected does not replay the true picture. It is not clear specifically how many people are going to lose their houses and homes.

The sub-prime market with predatory lenders and irresponsible borrowers is being blamed for the present crisis. It has lost its local colour and is raging across the country to touch international stock markets. Millions have lost their houses and more are waiting to join the ranks. It has triggered off socio-economic problem of jumbo proportions.