Archive for the 'States' Category

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has awarded a total of $6,395,897 grants to 88 local organizations across the state to help them provide assistance to homeless people, including those who lost their properties due to bank foreclosed house crisis.

The funds will be used by local organizations for transitional housing, supportive service, emergency shelter and homeless prevention programs for needy people, including those who lost their properties because of the bank foreclosed house crisis.

The funds were awarded to local agencies by state Secretary Richard J. Leinenkugel of the Department of Commerce in behalf of Doyle during the Wisconsin Conference on Homelessness held in Middleton.

Doyle said that the grants will aid local organizations provide assistance and direct service to homeless individuals and to help others avoid becoming homeless. He added that it is important that people help one another during this difficult economic times and to make Wisconsin a great place to live in.

Out of the total $6,395,897 grants, $4,622,588 was given to 66 organizations under the Emergency Shelter, Transitional Housing, Homelessness Prevention and Critical Assistance Grant Programs.

These programs will provide funding for essential services, shelter operations and short term rental assistance. They will also provide assistance to help distressed homeowners protect their properties from becoming bank foreclosed house.

About $906,400 were also given to nine local organizations under the HOME Tenant Based Rental Assistance Program which will provide up to 2 years of rental support to special needs and homeless tenants.

Seven organizations were awarded grants totaling $773.909 under the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness Program. The money will be used by the program to fund various services for mentally ill and people who have substance abuse disorder and have no place to call their home. The program will also help them avoid becoming homeless.

Furthermore, six organizations were recipients of about $93,000 granted under the SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery Program. The fund will be used to coordinate benefit and assistance services for mentally ill people with no home.

These services would be of great help to the state’s homeless people, especially those who lost their homes to foreclosures. June data showed that Wisconsin took the 21st spot among states with the highest bank foreclosed house rate.

As the economic recession endures, more and more Bay residents are finding themselves with no other option but to file for bankruptcy. Amid job loss, huge consumer debt and growing number of bank forclosed homes, it is not a least bit surprising.

Compared to last year, the new bankruptcy filings went up by 35 percent and approximately 100 percent in the last four years. According to lawyers specializing in bankruptcy, a lot of people who lost their job because of the sluggish economy were left with no alternative but to use up all their savings, max out their credit cards and take out numerous loans that they can not really pay in the first place. To make matters worse, credit card companies have been charging huge interests on unpaid balances, creating more financial problems for these people.

Financial experts call this the “snowball effect” where people are trying to cope with their debts and mortgage payments to prevent their homes from ending up as bank forclosed homes. Unfortunately, these people are not fully aware of what credit card corporations are doing.

Just last month, there were about 1,837 bankruptcy filings compared to 733 last June 2006. on the other hand, rate of unemployment in Massachusetts was recorded at 8.6 percent.

One should remember that people do not usually file for bankruptcy if they still enjoy unemployment benefits. If this runs out, they are no longer capable of paying any of their debts. For some, it was not only the inconvenience of having a bankruptcy entry on their credit report but also the distress of realizing that their home will also be among the bank forclosed homes. There are even those unlucky enough to get sued by their mortgage lender for the amount of money that remained to be owed after the foreclosure.

During the first six months of the current year, the number of bank forclosed homes in Massachusetts reached 18,548 with 1 out of 147 homes entering some stage of foreclosure. Compared to the second half of 2008, there was a 6.24 percent growth. Nationwide, the states of Arizona, California and Florida remains to have the highest foreclosure rate.

The subprime mortgage crisis may be on its last phase but the number of bank foreclosure homes will continue to rise. This is the somewhat bleak prognosis from industry experts who claimed that the rising unemployment rate is forcing many homeowners to miss mortgage payments and hindering efforts of the federal government to alleviate the foreclosure problem.

Unemployment is said to be fueling last month’s increase in the number of bank foreclosure homes. According to data, foreclosure activity rose by 5 percent across the country in June. In St. Louis, Missouri, the number of bank foreclosures homes for sale declined by 7 percent last month but was higher by 15 percent compared with the same period last year.

The June figures are still one of the all-time highs recorded in the area. Beyond Housing President Chris Krehmeyer said that the foreclosure numbers dropped slightly but still remain at the crisis proportions.

Housing counselors in St. Louis noted that the number of people struggling with high adjustable mortgage interest rate seems to be dwindling. But they are being replaced by people who just cannot make their mortgage payments because they lost their jobs or their working hours were reduced.

According to market data, the default rate for prime mortgages is increasing. Last year, one out of 125 prime borrowers in St. Louis was delinquent for at least 90 days. In May, the figures were one in every 90.

Meanwhile, the federal government has allocated billions into programs to encourage banking institutions to refinance loans for affordable interest rates to help distressed homeowners. According to area housing counselors, the programs are having an effect as more banks are offering loan modifications.

But here lies the problem. Area counselors said that the new payment plan will work only if the troubled homeowner has money to pay. Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center director Karen Wallensak said that a loan modification will not succeed if the homeowner has no means or source of income.

Representative Barney Frank has proposed an estimated $2 billion grant for short term loan programs to help jobless homeowners save their properties from becoming bank foreclosure homes.

Arizona has the second highest number of Bank Foreclosure Properties in the country in the first six months of this year. According to recent data, Arizona posted 90,000 filings of foreclosures from January to June this year, representing a 55 percent increase from the same period last year and 13 percent from the second half of 2008.

Market data showed that the number of properties on bank foreclosure list in Idaho continues to climb in June.

When a bank foreclosure property is neglected, neighbors usually do not know who to contact for its maintenance. Abandoned and vacant foreclosure properties are becoming a thorny issue on several neighborhoods in New Jersey as they could become blights and pull down home values of surrounding properties.

Florida is one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. And the growing number of bank foreclosure property is becoming a major problem that needed immediate attention from the local governments.

A Southern Nevada county and three cities are planning to ask the federal government for additional funding to boost their programs designed to ease bank forclosure listings.

The John Doe Movement has partnered with several organizations in Wisconsin for a project that is designed to contain Bank Foreclosure List in Rock County. Since last year, foreclosure rates in the county surged to 1,400 percent.

Foreclosure is relentlessly creating devastation in Arizona. Now, its brunt is being experienced by hotel and resort industries in Phoenix where many are being added to the growing list of bank owned foreclosures.