Callahan’s Cleveland Diary

Thanks to Lou Tisler of Neighborhood Housing Services, George has the download link to the Ohio Foreclosure Prevention Task Force final report to the Governor, released today.

This is a long document with a lot of substance (including the two “minority reports” at the end.) Unfortunately most of the factual analysis is mixed in with the long list of policy recommendations, so it’s hard for the ordinary reader to get a clear big-picture idea of what the Task Force thinks is happening. And except for the Bankers’ Association minority report, there’s no discussion of any policy options that were discussed but not adopted.

Nonetheless, if you’re trying to get your head around all the subplots in Ohio’s foreclosure drama, this report is going to be essential reading — so you might as well get started.

I do want to express some concern about the last group of recommendations — the “aftermath” group.

The Task Force’s topic was Foreclosure Prevention, of course, so it’s not surprising that this post-foreclosure policy section is kind of scattered. But it’s unfortunate that the Report steps around the immediate, mammoth ownership crisis facing many neighborhoods — in which a few distant corporations like Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo suddenly control a flood of houses that they don’t want, have no intention of maintaining, but hope to dump off to whoever will buy them, including more equity-stripping “investors”, flippers, absentee landlords, etc. The Task Force acknowledges that “the scale and impact of the problem is on the level of a natural disaster, warranting emergency assistance from state and federal government”. But it defines “the problem” as long-term abandonment and vacancy (i.e. nobody’s responsible) rather than short-term irresponsible ownership, dumping and equity stripping by a variety of identifiable parties who should be held responsible.

And there’s this:

The high level of foreclosures in many communities has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of vacant and abandoned houses, accelerating the cycle of falling values and shrinking demand… In these areas, local stakeholders must make an honest assessment as to whether structures and whole residential areas are appropriate for rehabilitation or need more drastic redevelopment measures…

The state initiative should do the following:

a. Provide planning and demonstration grants over the next two fiscal years to help communities develop comprehensive strategies to establish stability, quality and a sense of place in neighborhoods ravaged by foreclosure and vacancy. These locally driven strategies may include code enforcement, demolition, land banking and redevelopment…

b. Provide incentive grants in future years… on a competitive basis to communities who make comprehensive solutions for vacant and abandoned housing a high priority. The grants could be used for demolition or redevelopment in targeted geographic areas where the community has a long term redevelopment plan.

To take the “natural disaster” analogy a step further, this reminds me of the discussion of “how to build a new New Orleans” that began while ordinary residents were still being pulled off rooftops and bodies were still floating in the streets.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Foreclosure crisis, Poor Cleveland, Shrinking city. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.