New York Foreclosures Target the Minorities

New York foreclosures are targeting the minorities most – this is becoming clearly evident as the numbers continue to increase. Streets in Jamaica look as if a cyclone has mowed it down. One resident, Lakisha Brown still continues to stay with her two children after having temporarily snatched it from the jaws of foreclosure in April. Now she has to sell it – and sell it fast if she wants to salvage her credit. Across the road is Patrick Nicholas who is a renter.

He shakes his head saying that it is time for him to quickly locate out of this dangerous locality as his owner too has been served with a foreclosure notice. Walking down 145th street one passes two more foreclosed houses lying vacant. In front of another house lounged a burly man angry but resigned about the foreclosure notice pasted on his home. The foreclosure crisis came knocking late in the northeastern regions of USA but it is now sweeping through New York at a fantastic speed gobbling up billions of dollars in property wealth as per an analysis conducted by New York Times. The survey has been based on data collected since 2005.

Today no corner of the region has been spared from the Connecticut Gold Coast to the suburban zones of Long Island. 6% of all the mortgages are 90 days delinquent if not more. Foreclosures usually start at this point. Foreclosures have been especially unkind to the Blacks and Hispanics. There are three times more defaults to occur in these two communities than among the Whites. 85% of the areas worst hit by the crisis have a foreclosure rate that is double the average of the region.

Most of the residents in these localities are Afro-Americans and Latinos. In New York City the Black families earning over $68,000 per year are five times more prone to be holding sub-prime mortgages in comparison to the Whites earning the same and sometimes even less. This is of special painful significance as just over five or four years previously Black ownership of houses was increasing. For years discriminatory lending practising had prevented Blacks from owning houses. Today once more the trend is reversed as the Blacks are seeing the worth of their houses falling and savings vanishing. This pattern in New York is a repeat of what is happening elsewhere right across the country. Via