It's becoming quite clear that policy makers can't just will the region's foreclosure problem away. Two articles by the Sun-Times' Francine Knowles paint a pretty grim picture of the local housing market's health. According to a report from First American CoreLogic, 29.4 percent of properties in Illinois had negative equity, meaning a mortgage was greater than the value of the home, giving homeowners a huge incentive to abandon the property. In Chicagoland, the number is over 30 percent. Moreover, 14 percent of home mortgage loans in Illinois were in foreclosure or behind on payments at the end of the second quarter, a five percentage-point jump since last year.

As we've pointed out, it's not that new government regulations have "led to a spike" in foreclosures. It's that elected officials have done too little -- both the state and federal levels -- to step in and protect homeowners. And the most stinging failure has come from Washington where cowardly lawmakers have refused to stand up to financial institutions and pass Sen. Dick Durbin's judicial modification proposal, which is designed specifically to address underwater mortgages.

Most legislative attention nationally is being taken up by health care. In Illinois, the budget deficit has imposed severe limitations on what lawmakers can do. But getting people out from under these onerous debts should be a key priority for officials at both levels moving forward.