Callahan’s Cleveland Diary

So what if everything in today’s Plain Dealer editorial endorsing the Port’s Canada ferry approach, and the PD’s story on the same subject last Tuesday, is three-month-old news?

It probably just means that someone from the Port, or HMS Global, finally got around to meeting with the editors to pitch the story.  Mission accomplished. Better late than never.  It’s all good.

But now that the PD has decided to catch up with the ferry story, it would be good for a reporter to get on top of a few important details:

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My usual source for foreclosure statistics, NEO CANDO, has fallen a few weeks behind.  So over the weekend I went through the December filings on the Cuyahoga Common Pleas docket to identify the mortgage foreclosures (final tally: 775 new cases), added them to NEO CANDO’s total for the previous eleven months (now up to 9,351), and guess what… as predicted, our county saw more than 10,000 foreclosures cases filed in 2011.

10,126, to be precise.

Which makes 2011 the sixth consecutive five-figure year for the foreclosure lawyers, and brings their total filings (Common Pleas cases only, not counting those filed in Federal court) to about 70,370 since New Year’s Day 2006.

Seriously, people.  Cuyahoga County judges have been asked by mortgage holders to foreclose on more than 70,000 properties – mostly homes –  just since Frank Jackson was first sworn in as Mayor of Cleveland.   That’s roughly one foreclosure for every 6.25 residential structures in the county in 2000.  For the city of Cleveland, with about 30,500 of those foreclosures, it’s one for every 4.7 residential structures.

33,228 of those foreclosures — almost half — have been filed since Barack Obama became President.  (I wonder if anyone will ask him about that number at Shaker Heights High School tomorrow.)

And now over 10,000 have been filed on Ed Fitzgerald’s watch as County Executive.

Just got this in an email from Frank Ford at Neighborhood Progress:

County Prosecutor Bill Mason has just announced an indictment of one of Cleveland’s most prolific flipper/investors, Bryce Peters, aka Blaine Murphy. Murphy was arrested on December 23rd in Florida. The involvement of the County Prosecutor in the battle against those spreading blight in our neighborhoods is a big step forward.

… Here’s a quick summary of how Blaine Murphy has impacted Cleveland neighborhoods…

Properties that are or were owned by Bryce Peters between 8-29-03 and 10-18-11

COUNT FOR CITY OF CLEVELAND     221
POSTAL VACANCY      117
NUMBER TAX DELINQUENT     129
CURRENT TAX DELINQUENCY    $714,324
NUMBER DEMOLISHED TO DATE     50
DEMO COST TO CITY     $393,703

BANKS THAT SOLD TO BRYCE PETERS
DEUTSCHE     40
CITIBANK     39
CHASE / HOMESALES INC     28
WELLS / WACHOVIA     25
HSBC BANK USA     17
GMAC / HOMECOMINGS     14
US BANK     17
LASALLE BANK     14
RBS CITIZENS     9

INVESTORS THAT BOUGHT FROM BRYCE PETERS
TOMASI & SUBSIDIARIES     45
LANDMARK REO CLUB     13
ECONOHOMES / YOUNTS MOORE     12
STONECREST FINANCIAL     11
GO INVEST WISELY LLC     9
PARAMOUNT / INTERSTATE     7

Here’s the Prosecutor’s Office media advisory.   Press conference today at 2.

Update: Plain Dealer says “Peters” owes City millions.

Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka will likely also get his hands on Murphy once he is returned to Ohio.

Pianka has fined Murphy’s company hundreds of dollars a day for failing to repair or pay taxes, plus board-up and demolition costs on the abandoned properties he bought.

The London Free Press reports that Central Elgin officials, who are partners with the Port of Cleveland in the recently revived effort to get a Cleveland-Ontario ferry under way, say it won’t happen before 2013.

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869 new mortgage foreclosure cases were filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in November, including 134 by Bank of America, 102 by US Bank and 97 by Wells Fargo.  This brings us to 9,258 new filings since January 1… pretty much guaranteeing that the county will top 10,000 for the year.

Most frequent foreclosers in November:  Bank of America, 134 cases; US Bank, 102 cases; Wells Fargo, 97 cases; Third Federal, 67 cases; Citi, 66 cases;  Bank of New York Mellon, 48 cases; Deutsche Bank, 32 cases.

In case you missed Joe Pagonakis’ excellent piece on Channel 5 Tuesday, here’s the key scary takeaway for Cleveland residents:

Building and Housing Director Ed Rybka said his department has taken down more than 5,400 condemned homes since 2008, but admitted another 10,000 to 12,000 are awaiting demolition.

17,000 dead or doomed houses equals 11%-12% of all the housing structures in Cleveland counted by the 2000 Census.  And of course, it’s not over yet.

The City now provides a convenient way to see what this looks like in your neighborhood.

• Go to Cleveland | GIS and click on Land and Property Status. A map of the city comes up.
• On the “Layers” menu accompanying the map, click the little + sign next to “Land Status”.
• Click the boxes for “City Landbank Parcels”, “County Landbank Parcels”, and “Suspect Vacant Properties”. You’ll see little colored specks appear all over the map.
• Zoom the map to any part of the city and those specks will become color-coded parcels — City-owned vacant lots, lots and vacant houses owned by the County Landbank, and other vacant houses that the City has identified.

You’ll see something like this. Or worse.

Here’s a different way of looking at the 8,300+ new foreclosures filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court during the first ten months of 2011:

(Since I wrote the post linked above I’ve received a couple of private emails from people with inside perspectives on County government, saying, in effect: “County Executive Fitzgerald doesn’t have foreclosure prevention on his radar.” I don’t know whether this is true or not.  But the numbers above show pretty clearly that if he doesn’t, he should.)

No, not that one.  The Story of Christmas Ale was first posted by Eldest Daughter on her much better blog than this one a year ago. I was reminded of it just now by Channel 3 coverage of a cutesy old-factory–themed shop opening on West 28th north of Lorain, which is very near the warehouse beneath St. Ignatius where the forgotten children… well, read it for yourself.

The National, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s nightly news show, makes a wide-eyed visit to Cleveland, “a city in ruin”,  to watch us tear down houses.

Actually the balance of the piece is more upbeat than the purple-prose setup. But Canadians still seems to find this whole foreclosure crisis thing shocking.

Maybe on their next trip they’ll visit some emergency wards.

Update: Oh, wait, there’s more. Shock shock shock.  Apparently Cleveland reminded our correspondent of “Haiti, in a way, or some place like that”.

(But a commenter says: “This could be Winnipeg.” Is that better or worse?)

Press release from #OccupyCleveland this morning:

On Tuesday, November 15th, Elizabeth Sommerer and her two children, ages 5 and 7, are being evicted from their home at W. 94th and Denison. Late Sunday night, members of OccupyCleveland started setting up tents and occupying her property, with the intent of stopping the eviction. #OccupyCleveland seeks to shine a light on the tragedy and heartbreak of the foreclosure crisis.

Members of #OccupyCleveland will be reaching out to Beth’s neighbors on Monday to introduce themselves, explain why they are there and ask for their support. There will be a march at noon to other foreclosed properties in her neighborhood, to highlight the severity of the foreclosure crisis. At 7pm, #OccupyCleveland and the community will hold a vigil at Beth’s home. They will remain on her property overnight. Tuesday morning, friends and allies of #OccupyCleveland will gather at Beth’s home for a rally, in a last ditch effort to head off the eviction. Members of #OccupyCleveland will be in contact with Fannie Mae and Terra Realty to attempt to negotiate a rental agreement on Beth’s behalf. The Sheriff’s department and a moving truck will be arriving at 11:30 am, to remove Beth and her children from their home. #OccupyCleveland is asking that Fannie Mae allow Beth to rent her home and will not leave until her family has secured the right to stay there.

Update: Nice work.

(I hear that Fannie Mae, which owns the W. 94th house, is seriously considering a rental agreement for the Sommerers, thanks in part to advocacy by Congressman Kucinich’s staff.  There’s nothing like the public spotlight to get people to do the right thing.)