Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - 12:53 PM EDT

State adds free legal aid to foreclosure prevention effortBusiness First of Columbus -

Business First

 

State officials have added more muscle to an effort aimed at curbing Ohio's foreclosure crisis: free legal aid for troubled homeowners.

 

Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and several other state officials gathered Tuesday to announce it has added the legal component to its Save the Dream initiative, an effort created last month that helps homeowners connect with counselors and nearby assistance. The new Save the Dream component helps those who need foreclosure assistance but can't afford a lawyer.

 

Tuesday's development allows homeowners facing foreclosure to call the Save the Dream hotline at 888-404-4674 and see if they meet income and other eligibility requirements to be connected with an attorney working pro bono. The basic income eligibility requirement has been set at a $54,000 annual income or less for a family of four.

 

...

 

More at:

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/03/31/daily12.html

Hope for struggling homeowners

Nine big lenders vow to help Ohio borrowers stave off foreclosure

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 3:06 AM

By Tracy Turner

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Nine of the state's biggest subprime-loan servicers promised Gov. Ted Strickland yesterday that they will make a serious effort to keep thousands of Ohioans in their homes and out of foreclosure.

 

The loan servicers have agreed to work with borrowers to modify those loans or at least give borrowers with adjustable-rate loans several months' notice of a change in their mortgage interest rates.

 

The agreement was signed yesterday by Strickland and six of the nine loan servicers during a news conference. Three others sent signed copies of the agreement in advance of the event.

 

...

 

More at:

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/04/08/compact.ART_ART_04-08-08_A1_CO9S7B1.html?sid=101

 

Cross-posted from the Cleveland foreclosures thread since there's more than just Cleveland stuff in here....

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 16, 2008

Media Contact: Erin Biehl, [email protected]

(614) 387-2863 (office) or (614) 307-3772 (cell)

 

EFFORTS TO REDEVELOP CLEVELAND AREA VACANT PROPERTIES APPROVED FOR FUNDING BY OHIO HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY BOARD

More than $19 million in funding for affordable housing also approved at meeting

 

COLUMBUS — Six Cleveland area neighborhoods are looking forward to revitalization efforts that will encourage new homebuyers to invest in their communities. Today, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) Board approved an award of $1.5 million in Ohio Housing Trust Funds and a $1 million Housing Development Loan to assist the vacant properties redevelopment initiative in Cleveland.

 

Through this initiative, Neighborhood Progress Inc., the Cleveland Housing Network, the City of Cleveland, and six local community development corporations plan to revitalize six model blocks in the Buckeye, Detroit Shoreway, Fairfax, Glenville-Wade Park, Slavic Village and Tremont West neighborhoods. OHFA’s funding will help the development team reclaim and rehabilitate 50 homes for both homeownership and short-term lease purchase.

 

“By taking action to turn around neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosure, we can play a significant role in making them attractive for potential buyers,” said Doug Garver, Executive Director of the Agency. “We hope that as this initiative provides successful results, the Agency can partner with other groups to bring safer, more affordable housing to affected neighborhoods.”

 

...

 

More at:

 

http://www.ohiohome.org/newsreleases/rlsboard_apr08.htm

In Cleveland, Foreclosures Decimate Neighborhoods

by Scott Simon

National Public Radio

 

Weekend Edition Saturday, May 24, 2008 · In Cleveland's Slavic Village, a neighborhood on the southeast side of the city, "termites" have decimated a house once occupied by a couple.

 

The intruders haven't chewed through the wood or even destroyed the carpets. These termites, as Cleveland City Councilman Tony Brancatelli calls them, are vandals who've stripped the recently foreclosed house of its fixtures, plumbing pipes, windows and wiring.

 

"It's a very lucrative business. These aren't just necessarily somebody trying to get a fix or a crack head. These are professionals who come in to strip these houses," Brancatelli says. "We saw people in vans with high-powered equipment."

 

Vandalized homes are just one aspect of the fallout from the national subprime mortgage meltdown that has hit the Ohio city particularly hard. Since 2000, Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Cleveland, has recorded 80,000 foreclosures — the most per capita in the country. Nearly 19 percent of those foreclosures occurred last year, according to city statistics.

 

...

 

More at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90745303

Sheffield Lake leading county in foreclosures

Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

 

Lorain County foreclosures

City                Foreclosures  Households  Ratio

Sheffield Lake  129                2,768          1 in 21

Lorain            750              28,231          1 in 38

Amherst          112                4,553          1 in 41

Elyria              514              23,888          1 in 46

North Ridgeville 187                8,913        1 in 48

SOURCE: LORAIN COUNTY AUDITOR

 

 

ELYRIA — The foreclosure crisis is only getting worse in Lorain County.Through the end of May, a record 1,009 foreclosures have been filed, county Clerk of Courts Ron Nabakowski said Thursday. In the first five months of 2007, 933 foreclosures were filed.

 

In 2004, the figure was 584 in the same period...

 

Post edited 9-5-09 to comply with terms of use.

 

http://www.chroniclet.com/2008/06/06/sheffield-lake-leading-county-in-foreclosures/

Abandoned homes distressing

Untended eyesores hurt local values

BY AMBER ELLIS | [email protected]

 

The view from Tina Osborne's backyard isn't pretty.

 

From her deck in Florence, she overlooks several feet of grass and weeds - a serious eyesore in the cul-de-sac of her Carters Mill subdivision where neighbors have a tradition of putting down mulch and working together in their yards each summer.

 

A few weeks ago, the front yard of that same abandoned home didn't look much better - until a neighbor took it upon himself to cut the grass. He fears the untidy conditions will turn away potential buyers from his home, which is up for sale.

 

...

 

More at:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080616/NEWS01/806160307

Nobody's home

Flood of foreclosures means weeds are shooting up all over

Sunday, July 6, 2008 3:36 AM

By Jane Hawes

 

FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

DELAWARE, Ohio -- As Brandon Walker steered his riding mower toward knee-high grass that had engulfed the bottom of a backyard swing set, he passed an abandoned push mower in the garlic-mustard weeds along the side of the home.

 

The home on Delaware's east side is in foreclosure. Walker is one of two lawn-mowing contractors hired by the city to deal with the growing problem of out-of-control lawns at abandoned properties.

 

The city issued 160 citations in May for grass higher than 12 inches, about half on foreclosed properties. In all of 2007, there were 392 violations.

 

...

 

More at:

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/06/lawnmow.ART_ART_07-06-08_A1_5UAL8RU.html?sid=101

FORECLOSURE CRISIS

The hardest-hit cities

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Mark Gillispie

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

Foreclosure-tainted houses have caused home prices in Cleveland and many East Side suburbs to plummet in 2008 as banks and lenders unload their dam aged goods at rock-bottom prices.

 

The median home sale price in the city of Cleveland has dropped an aston- ishing 75 percent compared with the first six months of last year - from $62,000 to $15,500.

 

Maple Heights, Garfield Heights, Euclid, Bedford Heights, Warrensville Heights, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and South Euclid - communities that have had large numbers of foreclosures - have seen precipitous declines in home prices this year as well.

 

...

 

More at:

http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1215333056264330.xml&coll=2

just saw the Bill Moyer's Journal report on PBS on the devastation in Cleveland caused by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown; especially its impact on Slavic Village--very tragic (and it's spread throughout the entire city and even to the better suburbs). Though I'm not familiar with the neighborhood, if anyone else saw this (you mean, people actually go out and do things socially on Friday nights?) and is acquainted with the situation firsthand, maybe he/she could shed some light on the accuracy of this report.

You don't need an advanced degree to see this happening.

 

I drove out OH 125 towards Georgetown, and down a lot of back roads tracing out old raillines. As some are aware, I am wholly interested in abandonments -- just not when they are new or newer properties. On one street alone that stretched for ~2 miles, it was lined with houses on both sides -- 35 total. 20 had for sale signs; 5 were completely neglected, with broken windows and weeds infesting the entire house. I estimated at least 70% of these were built within the past five years.

 

Another back road had 10 houses, 3 of which were abandoned -- all very new properties. In fact, I don't think one had been lived in at all. I peeked through the windows and there was bare concrete -- no carpeting, and only half of the cabinets were installed; no appliances, nothing. 2 other properties were for sale on the street.

 

I also found an abandoned subdivision, with only two houses when it was designed for much more, the lots having never been trimmed. They are slowly reverting back to their original state.

 

It would make an interesting photo thread...

^"You don't need an advanced degree to see this happening." It's a good thing, since I don't have an advanced degree!

 

Maybe I didn't pose my question that well. It's obvious this sort of thing is of course happening throughout the entire nation. It's just that in a recent forum discussion about population loss in Cleveland (which I skimmed) there seemed to be a lot of debate about whether it was as severe as is claimed; and the Bill Moyers report indicated that the sub-prime crisis has indeed produced a great exodus of people from the city.

I don't know from the city would be a good term to use. The subprime mortgage mess has left many unable to afford a house in the suburbs, so many are moving into the inner city or inner suburbs to find relief. Meanwhile, high gasoline prices have made many rethink where they are living at; as a result, you have many coming into the inner city or inner cities to find relief. Both "crises" -- both caused by our own greed and backward thinking -- might actually be great for this nation in the long-term. Keeps us in check.

I don't know from the city would be a good term to use. The subprime mortgage mess has left many unable to afford a house in the suburbs, so many are moving into the inner city or inner suburbs to find relief. Meanwhile, high gasoline prices have made many rethink where they are living at; as a result, you have many coming into the inner city or inner cities to find relief. Both "crises" -- both caused by our own greed and backward thinking -- might actually be great for this nation in the long-term. Keeps us in check.

 

That may be, but for the time being this particular neighborhood is turning into an abandoned ruin.

I've been in Slavic Village a couple of times recently, and while the boardups and abandoned homes are definitely present and an increasing problem, I think it is overstating the matter to say that the neighborhood is turning into an abandoned ruin.

Well I haven't been to SV to see first hand.  I need to take a drive through.  However, I fault the city and its PR/Communications "team"  :roll: for not addressing the issue.

 

Many papers around the world and country are targeting Cleveland with the perception that ONE neighborhood equates an entire city.  When in essence Las Vegas, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Houston, N. Va and various cities in California have a worse problem than SV/Cleveland.

 

In addition, the media NEVER states what the city has done to address the problem or that Cleveland was one of the first cities to show that there was a mortgage problem and because of that, we've become a "poster child" for foreclosures/mortgage crisis.

 

I'm in no way saying that we don't have a problem, the region hasn't addressed it in the media and there is nothing worse than saying nothing. 

 

Earlier this year, during the dabates, a media correspondant, made some incorrect comments about abandonded homes on every street in Cleveland.  Not one person corrected her.  I would have fired her.  Hell I'd fire everyone on the City and the County's PR/Media/Communications departments and start over from scratch.  In my professional observation, they are all worthless!

There is a failry in-depth study of Slavic Village vacancys out online somewhere. 

 

.....ok, here it is, from the Greater Ohio website

 

60 Million and Counting.  Follow the hyperlink and there are additional links to .pdfs for the entire report, the executive summary, and specific citys.

 

The report looks at Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Lima, Zanesville, Springfield, and Ironton.  For Columbus and Cleveland they focus on neighborhoods, not the entire city.  The Cleveland neighborhoods  they looked at where Slavic Village, Detroit Shoreway, and Mount Pleasant.  The report says Slavic Village was about 10.9% vacant in 2007..

 

 

 

 

IIRC, the foreclosures in Slavic Village have been at a high rate for "several years" and predates the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

 

FYI, Here is the Cleveland Magazine November 2007 article on Slavic Village.  It does not really cover the financial angle. 

http://www.clevelandmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E73ABD6180B44874871A91F6BA5C249C&nm=Arts+%26+Entertainemnt&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=1578600D80804596A222593669321019&tier=4&id=AE3438909C764955A07027AD7AC818C4

I've been in Slavic Village a couple of times recently, and while the boardups and abandoned homes are definitely present and an increasing problem, I think it is overstating the matter to say that the neighborhood is turning into an abandoned ruin.

 

I admit the term “abandoned ruin” was mine, and I tend toward hyperbole (not that anyone’s noticed), but when a thousand homes (the number stated in the story) are in foreclosure in one neighborhood (Slavic Vill.), with some blocks having half their housing stock vacant, I don’t think that’s so much of an exaggeration. In many cases there is no possibility of rehabilitation because so many abandoned properties have been so thoroughly ransacked and stripped of basic materials that the only option is demolition.  (…and MTS, in the piece—I think it was the Cuyahoga County Treasurer—who said Shaker Heights--while indicating it was once one of the premier suburbs in the nation--has five hundred homes in crisis)

What gets me about this subprime crisis is the media's poor job in covering it. How many times have I read a national article and some journalist glosses over the true story. At the national level, journalist attributes the sub-prime crisis to the economic turmoil of Ohio and Michigan. Yes, this is partly to blame, but how about the real story. I recently read 80 percent of all foreclosures in Cuyahoga County over the last two years were sub-prime loans. Where is the story about greed and corruption? How about a story detailing Ohio's lax laws regarding predatory lending, which helped put Cleveland on the sub-prime map. I can't remember exactly how it transpired, but I know several Cleveland politicians approached Taft about predatory lending. As usual, Taft sided with the banks and dismissed their complaints. I think there needs to be a story (not some half-hearted attempt) about what banks were doing in some of these neighborhoods. If 80 percent of all the foreclosures in Cuyahoga over the last two years were sub-prime, what does that tell you? Something is wrong, but almost every story I read attributes the crisis to poor economic conditions (at least in Ohio and Michigan). Yes, that is part of the problem. Let me ask this question: what changed economically between 2006 and 2007? Not much. The only thing that really changed were some of these adjustable rate mortgages started to reset, leaving thousands of people unable to pay their mortgages. I’m still waiting for a real story about this crisis. For the most part, the national and local media has missed the point. The securitization of mortgages may go done as one the worst economic experiments of the last 50 years.

^ you're right. The Bill Moyers story was very critical of the Ohio Legislature and the banks.

While there is no doubt that SV is dealing with some very serious issues, it still maintains some beautiful essence of community. I rarely get down that way, but some work related business recently has had me down there some.  I was really amazed and touched even at how some streets are so tidy and charming. It was in a way that can only be achieved by years of history and commitment. These are not homes that went into terrible decline and then were renovated and restored by urban pioneers. There homes have never gone into ruin. It looks like much older people are trying to hang on. I saw them tending gardens and socializing with neighbors.

 

I came upon a corner Polish Market, Krusinski's.  I was struck how friendly they were, helping me pick out authentic selections (I have to put the details on food forum). Everything was excellent! Anyway, I watched locals come in and catch up, and I swear it looked like a scene that could have taken place 100 years ago: meat guys walking in with entire sides of beef on their shoulders (fresh ground in house)-cabbage rolls and Kielbasa were great.  I googled more info:  http://cleveland.about.com/od/neighborhoods/ss/slavicvillage_6.htm

 

Slavic Village has a yearly festival, which is great. Although, I was sorry to see many local holigans behaving terribly at this family event. Swearing and fighting loudly in front of families. 

 

The forclosure and crime mess is a terrible pity. Still this place has something very special. definitely check it out.

^thanks for your observations. The Bill Moyers piece showed none of this. Based on the worst-case scenario properties shown, I’m sure most viewers (like me) concluded the neighborhood was a vast wasteland (as a matter of fact, the footage suggested New Orleans after Katrina) with only a smattering of stable residents desperately trying to keep the place together. The piece was clearly trying to demonize the banks as the chief culprit for the foreclosure mess (and indeed I concur); but a failure to at least humanize the community beyond those affected most deeply by this crisis did neither Slavic Village nor Cleveland at large any favors. I guess Bill Moyers--like those on the opposite side of the political continuum--has his own agenda to promote, unfortunately at the expense of fairness and common sense.

The conservative Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board excoriated State Senator Tim Grendell on the Ohio Legislature for their legislation late in the 2006 lame duck session when the Ohio Legislature removed Cleveland's home rule powers to regulate lenders.

 

The PD noted that it was hypocrisy on the acount of the Republicans who claim that they are for home-rule and governing at the lowest level, but when it came time to apply their political theory, the republicans just sided with the "special interests" who support them in elections.  I am talking about campaign contributions.  IIRC, the PD vowed that they will not endorse State Senator Grendell when he runs for reelection in 2008. 

Shaker Heights turns foreclosed home sites into public spaces

Posted by Grant Segall July 30, 2008 18:45PM

 

Shaker Heights -- The city has a new idea for some vacant residential lots: Don't build homes there. Put a patio, a gazebo or a garden there instead. Shaker Heights, expanding its public land bank this year by buying nine foreclosed homes, is encouraging neighbors to buy and improve some of the cleared sites as side lots.

 

More at http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/07/shaker_heights_turns_foreclose.html

This sucks.  We're making de-densifying our existing neighborhoods into policy now?

^It does totally suck, but what's a practical alternative?  De-densification is already happening, this is just a tool to try to shape it.  The market for these types of older houses in Shaker (and the whole county) is completely dysfunctional right now.  Almost no-one is buying them as their own homes- they either rot empty in bank REO inventories or are flipped or rented out by absentee landlords who have little incentive to invest in their properties.  As the PD reported a few weeks ago, most house sales in Cleveland through the first half of this year were for less than $20k.  Outside of gentrifying areas, the economics of rehab and resale for small older houses that need substantial work are terrible.

 

Land banking is better than formal park dedications in most cases, but I think Shaker is also doing this also to try to boost property values and make the houses in this area more competitive with larger lots homes further out to stem further decline...which helps fight long run de-densification.

Nation's foreclosure rate increases as Ohio's stays high, but steady

 

by Shaheen Samavati

Thursday August 14, 2008, 2:51 PM

 

The national foreclosure rate is starting to catch up with Ohio's.

 

Across the country, more than 272,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in July, up 55 percent from about 175,000 in the same month last year and up 8 percent from June, according to a report from Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc., which monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

 

More at http://www.cleveland.com/realestatenews/index.ssf/2008/08/nations_foreclosure_rate_incre.html

 

This has some key Frank Jackson content

 

They Warned Us About the Mortgage Crisis

State whistleblowers tried to curtail greedy lending—and were thwarted by the Bush Administration and the financial industry

by Robert Berner and Brian Grow

 

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

 

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

 

Hawke, a veteran banking industry lawyer appointed to head the OCC by President Bill Clinton in 1998, wouldn't budge. He said he would reinforce federal policies that hindered states from reining in lenders. The AGs left the tense hour-long meeting realizing that Washington had become a foe in the nascent fight against reckless real estate finance. The OCC "took 50 sheriffs off the job during the time the mortgage lending industry was becoming the Wild West," Cooper says.

 

...

 

More at:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_42/b4104036827981.htm

Thats a great picture!  Sorry the Publicist in me came out!

yeah, I like the picture too ;)

Wasn't quite sure where to put this one, so feel free to move to a more appropriate thread if need be.

 

While this article is more about the buying and selling of apartment building themselves, and not the rental market itself, one of the conclusions -- that vacancy rates in apartments will actually rise (to 6.3 percent) -- struck me by surprise.  I had assumed that the state of the economy would be a boon to apartment building owners.  The thousands of people being foreclosed upon would assumedly turn to apartments for a place to live; while it is a buyers market and mortgage rates are certainly attractive to first-time buyers, potential sellers are holding off because the market is just so dreadfully bad, and how attainable for all but those with the most perfect credit are these bargain interest rates? Thus shouldn't we see the demand for apartments increase for the time being?

 

Also, it's interesting to note that K&D is apparently selling a number of their existing apartment complexes.  The optimist in me says that this is all part of their their need to provide additional funding for the acquisition/renovation of Ameritrust tower...and that they're doing something about it.  :|

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/02/marvin_fongthe_plain_dealer_le.html

 

Apartment building owners finding some bright spots in down economy

Posted by Michelle Jarboe/Plain Dealer Reporter February 05, 2009 17:11PM

Categories: Real Time News, Real estate

 

Amid the rubble of the commercial real estate industry, there's a little bit of sparkle.

 

Apartment buildings are holding up, even as developers are benched, retailers go bust and real estate groups beg for a bite of the government bailouts.

 

Sure, economists expect some pain for apartments in 2009. Mounting job losses and the sour economy could result in fewer new households -- a blow to occupancy levels and landlords' abilities to raise rents. But apartments are looking pretty stable compared with other sectors of the ailing real estate industry.

 

More at http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/02/marvin_fongthe_plain_dealer_le.html

does anyone know a good resource for finding foreclosed property for sale? whether it be foreclosed upon for tax delinquency or bank foreclosure.  Was wondering if anyone knows good websites I can find some.

 

Thanks!

http://reosearch.fanniemae.com/reosearch/ (FannieMae)

 

http://www.homesteps.com/ (FreddieMac)

 

http://sheriff.cuyahogacounty.us/foreclosures.asp

A better listing is usually found at the county sheriff's department, for example this is the one in Cleveland.

http://reosearch.fanniemae.com/reosearch/ (FannieMae)

 

http://www.homesteps.com/ (FreddieMac)

 

http://sheriff.cuyahogacounty.us/foreclosures.asp

A better listing is usually found at the county sheriff's department, for example this is the one in Cleveland.

 

Thanks!

This show was very interesting

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/28892719

 

I can't believe the things took equity out for or the folks saying they made four times their salary to buy a house they can't afford.

I haven't read it yet, but looks like Cleveland's foreclosure problem is the feature article of this Sunday's NYTimes Magazine:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/magazine/08Foreclosure-t.html?_r=1&hp

This was previously posted here

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,3936.0.html

 

Okay, sorry, I didn't notice it earlier. Even though the article appears in today's print edition in the magazine, I didn't realize the Times posted it online earlier in the week, which is when someone else linked it here. I therefore had no reason to believe it was already up. When I saw that my post had disappeared and didn't know why, I re-posted it. Is there a way to notify someone when his/her post is deleted, and for what reason? Thanks and sorry for the confusion.

I found this passage particularly shocking:

 

"...it appears that most of the people who lost their homes have moved in with relatives, found a rental or moved out of the city altogether. The county has lost nearly 100,000 people over the past seven years, the largest exodus in recent memory outside of New Orleans."

 

Mentioning our city in the same vein as a natural disaster like Hurrican Katrina paints such a very bleak picture for Cleveland.

 

This letter is in response to the article "All Boarded Up" written by ALEX KOTLOWITZ.

 

  During my time (1993 to 1999) as President of {the now defunct} South East Clevelanders Together I worked to promote community organizing in Ward 12 {Slavic Village} to address quality of life issues {such as crime watch} in an aggressive and systematic manner.  During that time, Ward 12 was represented by current City of Cleveland Director of Building and Housing Edward W. Rybka and the former Broadway Area Housing Coalition nka Slavic Village Development headed then by current Ward 12 Councilman Anthony Brancatelli.  Needless to say, it did not take long for our organization to clash with the former Councilman's housing group. Their primary objective was to build and rehabilitate housing without any real regard for the other issues affecting the residents and business owners.  They too took the worst houses and put people in them who had no ability {or desire} to pay.  In fact, once they completed their first rehabilitation on any given street that house soon became a haven for various social malcontents.  Once the "single apple spoiled the barrel" the remaining law-abiding residents moved thus adding further to the catastrophe.  Now the Cleveland City Council wants to extend the boundaries of Ward 12 beyond the current boundaries of Ward 15 which {as luck would have it} would include my residence.  Councilman Brian Cummins has been a fine representative for Ward 15 but as for Ward 12 Councilman Anthony Brancatelli; he will do for Ward 15 {Old Brooklyn} was he has and will continue to do for Ward 12 {Slavic Village}.

 

Recent talk at Cleveland State:

 

 

Levin College Forum: Building Cleveland’s Future Beyond Foreclosure

April 23, 2009...10:24 pm

 

Today, Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs kicked off its year-long series on the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland: “Building our Future Beyond Foreclosure: Setting the Stage, Beating the Odds.”

 

The forum brought together civic and business leaders with more than 100 audience members to brainstorm ways to ensure Cleveland will emerge from the Foreclosure Crisis stronger.

 

This crisis “certainly presents a challenge, but it also provides an opportunity,” said Kathy Hexter, a CSU faculty member and organizer of the event. “What do we want the census to say about us in 10 years?”

 

...

 

More at:

http://rustwire.com/2009/04/23/levin-college-forum-building-clevelands-future-beyond-foreclosure/

 

I know this is highly anecdotal, but I'd like to offer my most recent observations about the foreclosure crisis as it affects Cleveland.

 

Abandoned properties have been Cleveland's bane for many, many years.  I spent all of 2007 and 2008 closely monitoring the foreclosure and property markets in East Cleveland/CH/Little Italy, and boy, were they plentiful, most in especially poor condition from years of absolute neglect.  Now, when I go by these same properties I toured a year or two ago, a good percentage of them are being renovated into fairly livable and decent houses. 

 

What's my point?  I never understood why property owners held on to their abandoned factories and collapsing houses for dear life -- there has to be someone who can get profitable use out of the place, even for $1/yr rent?  Well, I think that many of these owners refused to sell simply because they speculated that the property would be worth more in the future than they paid for it.  But now -- we know now that's not true!  These owners are finally getting rid of these abandoned properties at prices to people who actually want to *redevelop* the property at little upfront cost.  I think this is exactly what the city needed - a shove in the right direction, and a fire under property owners' butts to make their property produce something.

<a href=http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/if-you-lived-here-youd-be-home-already/Content?oid=1567496>IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU'D BE HOME ALREADY</a>

County 'land bank' planners see opportunity amid the foreclosure rubble

by Story By Dan Harkins, Photography By Rose Marincil

 

Drive east out of downtown Cleveland, and it's just a few minutes before you come to one of the city's starkest divides between the haves and the have-nots, at the exit for the tony lakeshore enclave of Bratenahl and the cratered Glenville home of Superman. Turn left, and there are manicured mansions and not a pothole in sight. Turn right, and it's like a city that got overrun by wolves. It's in this neighborhood and in Slavic Village on the city's south side — two neighborhoods that are poster children for the ravages of the foreclosure crisis — that the county land bank will kick off its work, expanding upon the city's efforts to reshape and rethink the Cleveland of tomorrow.

 

It's obvious why they're starting here: You glean right away there's something precious to save. You can see the succession of successes and failures. The vacant row house boarded up and peeling apart, across the street from the well-kept branch of the public library. The trim, clean Glenville Plaza and East Side Market, then the empty grocery store and the battered storefronts. Grand, well-tended gingerbread houses with views of the Cultural Gardens, surrounded by others with shards for windows, inhabited only by ghosts.

 

"Five, six, seven, eight — it's unbelievable," says Tracey Kirksey, steering her red Mini Cooper through the streets she oversees as executive director of Glenville Development Corp. "Oh, wait — there's nine there now. There once was a time when we rivaled downtown for retail and restaurants and all that; we were known as the Gold Coast. Now, people come back to see how the neighborhoods are doing, and what they see is how this economy has devastated so many parts of it."

 

...

 

More at:

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/if-you-lived-here-youd-be-home-already/Content?oid=1567496

<a href=http://www.gcbl.org/blog/marc-lefkowitz/there-are-no-neighbors-here>There are no neighbors here</a>

Submitted by Marc Lefkowitz

Last edited May 12, 2009 - 2:38pm

 

Alex Kotlowitz recounted why he was compelled to write in a recent New York Times Magazine article about the tsunami of 10,000 home foreclosures that have swamped Cleveland. He couldn’t turn away from the narrative of injustice and unanswered questions about why banks and mortgage companies—and state elected officials a few years back who nullified Cleveland’s anti-predatory lending law—were allowed to tear apart the fabric of the city. But for Kotlowitz, who spent years with two young boys in Chicago’s projects in the 1980s telling their story in the classic book, There are No Children Here, Cleveland’s situation goes beyond telling the story of the foreclosure crisis’ victims.

 

“It was the one place I could find—the only place I could find in the country—where people are pushing back.”

 

Like Anita Gardner, who’s living on E. 113th Street in Glenville surrounded by 30 homes abandoned by the victims of subprime lending. Siding has been peeled away and windows are gone. Inside these houses, it’s worse. Walls have been punched out and the metals scavenged. Gardner came home from work one day to discover squatters grilling dinner inside the home next door.

 

...

 

More at:

http://www.gcbl.org/blog/marc-lefkowitz/there-are-no-neighbors-here

http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2009/05/cuyahoga_county_land_bank_coul.html

 

Cuyahoga County land bank could launch Cleveland renewal

Posted by Steven Litt/Plain Dealer Architecture Critic May 16, 2009 00:10AM

 

Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis is a popular guy these days.

 

His desk is awash in proposals for thousands of vacant and abandoned properties that will soon be scooped up by the powerful new county land bank he persuaded the Ohio legislature to authorize in December. Urban farmers want to sprinkle the city with zero-fossil-energy greenhouses. Neighborhood activists envision parks, trails and community gardens. Rokakis even has a brochure from a businessman who wants to build a winery in Hough on Cleveland's East Side.

 

More at http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2009/05/cuyahoga_county_land_bank_coul.html

The New City Beautiful, a concept promoted by Edward Hill, interim dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, who argues that a new network of beautifully landscaped urban parks would add enormous value to neighborhoods.

 

This is being considered in Dayton, too. 

 

But I like that concept of Chateau Ho.  They can market it as "inner city wine for inner city people" or somthing like that. 

 

 

 

We also have this thread too:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,11907.60.html

 

 

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1247128388237050.xml&coll=2

 

British speculator on Cleveland building ends up with a lot of nothing -- editorial

Thursday, July 09, 2009

 

Retired Dr. Sheo Prasad is an educated man. He is also a sucker.

 

Prasad, like hundreds of speculators -- often with more cash than sense -- sees the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland as an investment opportunity.

 

In November 2008, he got on eBay, paid a female flipper in North Carolina $35,000 and bought six properties, sight unseen, in distressed East Side neighborhoods.

 

More at http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1247128388237050.xml&coll=2

 

Rokakis sounds so crazy he needs to be chained to a bed.  Quit tearing down apartment buildings!  They're economical for poor renters.  These need to be renovated period.  You're not going to raise demand for over-unders by eradicating your building stock, you're just going to push people into over-unders they don't want to be in while leaving your city barren of architecture.  We need to take down obsolete woodframe homes at a much higher rate than we take down apartment buildings.  It seems like that destruction ratio has been off for about 50 years.

I think Rokakis is right- idiot speculators buying properties site-unseen without doing any title work or due diligence deserve an email spanking. 

 

327, I too get bummed when attractive buildings get knocked down, but the city isn't deciding which ones are abandoned and become neighborhood disamenities.  And you can't in good consciousness tell the disgruntled neighbors who have to live near these properties to just hang on for another 20 years in case the market changes.  This isn't news to anyone, but the city and county are pretty helpless in the face of resident preferences and development patterns.  As the population has stagnated in the region and housing construction continued on the outskirst, the older housing stock has filtered down.  People with modest means can now afford to buy or rent single family houses or can rent in better neighborhoods.  Hence, massive oversupply of multifamily units in crappier neighborhoods.  If you are disappointed by this demo, you're going to hate the next few years as the demo pace really picks up.

Does the city demolish industrial sites? Why do they pick on residential properties so much, yet ignore some industrial sites that been abandoned for DECADES.