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Congressional panel in Cleveland to seek solutions to problem
By M.R. Kropko
Associated Press
Published on Tuesday, Jun 17, 2008
CLEVELAND: Congress must come together on a government rescue package to resolve the nation's foreclosure crisis, which has hit Ohio particularly hard, a leading House Democrat said Monday.
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who chairs the subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, told an audience at Cleveland State University that she hopes the House can negotiate a foreclosure rescue package with the Senate that will reach President Bush's desk by July 4.
Ohio has been particularly vulnerable to subprime lending and its aftereffects, Waters said.
''Because of the challenges it has faced economically over the past number of years with the loss of manufacturing jobs and population from certain parts of the state, Ohio was truly the canary in the coal mine of the foreclosure crisis,'' Waters said.
Waters said she has seen neighborhoods plagued by foreclosed properties in Cleveland as well as in her home state of California. The congresswoman said lawmakers are looking for guidance as they search for effective solutions to the problem.
Members of the U.S. House subcommittee on housing were in Cleveland to hear testimony from state and local officials, representatives from the banking and mortgage industries, and leaders of housing advocacy groups.
U.S. foreclosure filings surged 48 percent in May, a foreclosure listing company said last week. Ohio ranked ninth on the latest survey by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc., although the number of filings in Ohio was down 7 percent, compared with May 2007.
Ohio had about 12,000 foreclosure filings in May, the fifth-highest monthly total in the nation.
''The crisis of mortgage foreclosure has touched all corners of Ohio,'' Ohio Department of Commerce Director Kim Zurz told the panel.
A graph displayed at the hearing, based on information compiled at the Ohio Supreme Court, indicated Ohio foreclosures have climbed every year since 2000, reaching 83,230 in 2007.
Zurz said she doesn't believe the crisis in Ohio has bottomed out yet.
''I do believe that our very aggressive efforts have been making a difference to work with everybody to get a solution, but we've still got a long way to go,'' she said.
Cleveland's weak housing market coupled with a housing oversupply has created a large number of foreclosures and abandoned properties, said U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, whose district in the city has been hit hard. She added that at the end of last year, the city had identified more than 8,500 abandoned or nuisance properties.
In January, Cleveland sued 21 of the nation's biggest mortgage leaders, seeking to win hundreds of millions of dollars that it wants to use to rebuild neighborhoods devastated by the subprime lending crisis.
The city's lawsuit seeks to recover lost tax revenue from devalued property and money spent demolishing and boarding up abandoned houses, along with police and fire protection.
The defendants include both sides of a pending $4.1 billion takeover — Bank of America and Countrywide Financial, which will be bought by BOA. The acquisition will make Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. the nation's biggest mortgage lender and loan servicer.
Michael Gross, a managing director for Countrywide, told the panel that the company has refused to join other Ohio lenders in a compact to curb foreclosures because it services nine million loans across the nation and must maintain consistent loan standards in every state.
''Countrywide can't get off just with the sale to Bank of America,'' Waters told Gross. ''You have become a poster child for what is wrong.''
CLEVELAND: Congress must come together on a government rescue package to resolve the nation's foreclosure crisis, which has hit Ohio particularly hard, a leading House Democrat said Monday.
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