Mayor Launches Joint Scheme For Tracking Foreclosures

In Milwaukee the Mayor Tom Barrett has announced on 8th September 2008, the launching of a joint scheme with private partnership to tackle the foreclosure menace. It has been named the Foreclosure Prevention Partnership and will formally take off on the 11th.

According to statistics the situation is alarming. Already this year there have been 1,500 foreclosures with the lenders being the banks. It is a high jump of 56% from last year during the same period. According to the estimate of the city officials, about half of these units are lying empty dotted across the city. Derelict houses attract crime and disease. Fires break out. Moreover the REO houses bring down the property value of the neighbouring houses by vitiating the locality.

Barrett is gravely concerned about these empty foreclosed houses. Doug Holton the chief of the fire department and the employees of Department of Neighborhood Services share his anxiety. They toured the northern parts of the locality and noted six fires had broken out in the vacant foreclosed houses in three blocks since May this year.

Barrett said that he had visited about four or five different REO properties one morning. Recently families had occupied these houses. He said, “What happens to them? It underscored the stress that’s created by the mortgage crisis and people who cannot pay their bills.”

For the past two years or so the partnership plans have been taking shape. The idea took birth as soon as the increasing number of foreclosures was noticed following the trend of the national housing crisis. As part of the programme the city has made a database of the entire bank repossessed houses. These have been plotted on maps. The staffs are hard at work endeavoring to monitor the system to locate the foreclosed units and collect information about the foreclosure postings from the county office department that deals with this related matter. The information will act as a warning signal to make the officials alert regarding the trends in specific localities.

In a statement Barrett reiterated that the resources of the city are being taxed to the limits because of the increase of foreclosures in Milwaukee. “The underlying instability in the neighborhoods hardest hit only makes our challenge that much greater” he said. Thus the partnership team up is of critical importance in finding a solution to the foreclosure problem and restoring the health of the region.