Nato talks security and peace, Chicago has neither

[EFerrari]

1. Abandoned foreclosures: Chicago's lost homes

By MeganCottrell, January 14, 2011 at 12:04 pm

We all know that there are a ton of foreclosures in Chicago. How many? More than 45,000 in the city's metro area in 2010. But there's a slice of those, and not a small one, that falls into a different category. They're almost like ghost homes - not really among the living or the dead.

Abandoned foreclosures are beginning to appear more and more across the city. These vacant homes have been deserted by two groups of people - the families who inhabited them, and the bankers who claimed them. And while they rest in the nether world between being lived in and being resold, they fall into terrible disrepair, attracting squatters and criminal activity - an eyesore in the neighborhood until they're finally condemned.

How did they get this way? Abandoned foreclosures are a true casualty of the housing market. And unless we find a solution, these house-zombies will start eating our neighborhoods alive.
The Woodstock Institute recenlty released a study on abandoned foreclosures in Chicago, telling us what's going on and where it's happening.

There are two major entities to deal with in any foreclosures - the mortgage servicer and the lender. The lender actually owns the property, but it's the servicer who a homeowner deals with most of the time. The servicer collects the mortgage payments, negotiates loan modifications and proceeds with a foreclosure if necessary. If the property is foreclosed on, it's the servicer who's responsible for keeping up that property and making sure it doesn't become derelict.

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2011/01/abandoned-foreclosures-chicagos-lost-homes/