Progress Illinois

Tired of seeing innocent renters caught in the middle of the foreclosure crisis, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is putting the breaks on evictions unless lenders can provide evidence that officers are being sent to toss the right people from their homes.

Dart is specifically demanding a signed affidavit that spells out the target of each individual foreclosure proceeding. Once lenders provide that to the sheriff's office, and it's confirmed that the homeowner and resident are one in the same, the eviction can proceed.

"I'm not asking [banks] to forgive the loans," Dart said at a press conference today. "All we're asking is due diligence."

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When Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued Countrywide Financial in June for engaging in deceptive mortgage lending practices, her goal was "to help homeowners now." It now appears she's done just that:

Countrywide Financial Corp., the home mortgage lender acquired by Bank of America Corp. in July, will offer interest rate and loan principal reductions plus other distressed borrower relief valued at $8.4 billion to settle consumer fraud complaints from 11 states.

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Last night, the Senate approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill. Absent from the legislation was a provision aimed at building and rehabilitating affordable housing stock. For that, you can blame conservatives.

For days, Republicans of various stripes have fumed about a section of the bailout bill they believe was written principally to redirect taxpayer money to ACORN, the low-income community group right-wingers love to hate. Earlier this week, the local conservative blog Backyard Conservative flagged a Ken Blackwell article in which the vote purging extraordinaire writes that "repeated rumors leaked out that the Democrats were trying to funnel money to a hyper-partisan organization involved in criminal voter fraud." House Minority leader John Boehner told reporters the trust fund idea was a "left-wing giveaway Democrats are pushing to force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for a discredited ally of the Democratic Party.” Even 10th District GOP Rep. Mark Kirk told The Hill last Friday that centrists might not vote for a bill that included funds for ACORN.

So what are they talking about?

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Yesterday, Archpundit offered his own explanation of why conservatives' attempts to blame the economic crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is bunk.  He made two crucial points: 1) the truly problematic subprime loans came from independent mortgage providers unregulated by the CRA, and 2) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed because they began playing with mortgage backed securities built on the backs of bad loans.

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Next week, Attorney General Lisa Madigan will visit Boston and learn to which federal court her lawsuit against the former mortgage giant Countrywide Financial will be assigned. As you may remember, Madigan filed a suit against Countrywide in June for engaging in deceptive lending practices. Does she have a shot of winning? The Reader's Whet Moser points us to an excellent Columbia Journalism Review piece by Dean Starkman that suggests Madigan's case is pretty tight. The whole article is worth your time, but here is one choice excerpt after the jump in which Starkman explains how "the evidence is becoming overwhelming of a profound structural shift in the U.S. lending industry -- one that institutionalized widespread deceptive practices and outright fraud perpetrated on borrowers":

And while they are only allegations, few would argue with California when it asserts that the more onerous the terms of a loan for the borrower—e.g. higher rates, prepayment penalties, etc.—the more global bond investors would pay for it; and is it really in doubt that everyone in the loan-supply chain, including the sales force, got higher pay the more onerous the terms? Or, as California puts it: “The value on the secondary market of the loans generated by a Countrywide branch was an important factor in determining the branch’s profitability and, in turn, branch manager compensation.”

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Encouraging economic news is hard to come by these days, no matter what Sean Hannity tells you. According to new data from RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings are still rising in Illinois, a full year after the housing bubble burst. In August, 10,757 Illinois households reported filings (default notices, auction sale notices or bank repossessions), a 20 percent jump from one month prior and a 72 percent rise from August 2007. Illinois was the ninth most affected state, one spot ahead of neighboring Indiana, which experienced a 10 percent increase since July. Nationally, one in every 416 households -- a total of over 300,000 homes -- received a foreclosure filing.

The Cook County Board has taken steps to inform its residents about possible ways to keep their homes, host 14 workshops (beginning this Saturday) aimed at helping folks restructure expensive mortgages. Commissioner Deborah Sims told WBEZ that while attendance has been low in the past, the workshops can still be valuable:

SIMS: Nobody wants to come and say that their house is in foreclosure. But I think by having all of (the workshops) at different places, people can go outside of their communities where people don't know them. They can feel comfortable by coming. Too many people are losing their houses, and it's all because of predatory lending.

Remember that mortgage relief bill that Rep. Peter Roskam voted against because, as he so eloquently put it, he didn't want Gov. Rod Blagojevich to be our landlord? As we noted, the position was bunk: the governor will have very little control over how the funds promised to Illinois cities and municipalities will be used. And while the details are still being ironed out, the Christian Science Monitor highlights a few of the projects local legislators are planning to enact once given their share of the promised $4 billion. Turns out, many of them sound pretty darn helpful.

Among the ideas forming: Baltimore intends to use some funds to gain control of the inventory of foreclosed homes within it's borders, Cleveland may demolish houses in blighted areas and then plan neighborhoods more thoughtfully, and Trenton, NJ officials want to rehabilitate abandoned lots and restore copper wiring that's has been stolen:

States and cities consider the funding a key to blunting the effect of foreclosures, seen in abandoned properties, inadequate rental housing, and deteriorating neighborhoods. For many locales, it will add leverage to their own efforts. Some community activists hope the money will also help to moderate home-price declines.

"For many communities impacted by homes already foreclosed on, this was viewed as the linchpin to turn the tide around," says David Berenbaum, executive vice president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in Washington. "It will augment state, private, and partnership funds."

There's no word yet on how much of the total appropriation will be sent to Illinois.

It's tough to find good news about the housing market these days. Affordable options are out of reach for many working families. Illinois' foreclosure rate is rising. Even renters whose landlords went belly-up on their mortgages are being forced onto the streets.

But this AP story highlights one encouraging trend:

In fact, green housing is growing even while the overall housing market is suffering, said Nate Kredich, the council's vice president for residential market development.

This year, green building is expected to represent 6 percent of the residential construction industry, according to a survey conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction Research & Analytics for the U.S. Green Building Council. That's up from just 2 percent in 2005.

The Washington Independent's Suemedha Sood teases out a few other interesting findings from the report. Among them, the green housing market is expected to rise from $2 billion to $20 billion by 2013 and green products are being used for 40 percent of remodeling work in American homes.

If you want more information on possible ways to green your home, check out the Museum of Science and Industry's Smart Home exhibit, which runs through December.

On the eve of the Olympic games, Mayor Richard Daley flew to China to test out Beijing's state-of-the-art mass transit system. Back in Chicago, residents are using the possibility of the 2016 Olympics being held in Chicago to advocate for better services as well.

Members of Communities for an Equitable Olympics 2016, a coalition of South Side community and labor organizations, are rallying today outside the now-closed Michael Reese Hospital -- the proposed site for the Olympic Village -- to pressure the Olympic Committee to protect jobs and housing on the South Side if the city is awarded the games. WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight caught up with Jay Travis, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization and one of the leaders of the new coalition, who provided some more detail about the effort:

We have a list of things that include education, public space, public finances and public services. But most importantly, community folks are concerned that our voices are heard, that we're at the table, and that we are the key people that create a benefit's agreement process.

Travis says that members of the coalition have been meeting with elected officials, officials from various city departments, and the 2016 committee for over six months to voice their concerns. They aren't the only ones: as Mischa Gaus wrote last summer, South Siders know the risks associated with the Olympics and refuse to be left out of the discussion.

RealtyTrac, Inc. released its second quarter foreclosure figures on Friday.  Like elsewhere in the country, the findings out of Illinois and Chicago were disconcerting to say the least:

Illinois’ foreclosure rate ranked it No. 10 in the country, with one foreclosure for every 193 households in the state. That marked a 16 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 58 percent jump from second-quarter 2007.

Chicago ranked 35 among the top 100 metro areas with 21,488 properties with foreclosure filings for a rate of one for every 144 households. That was up 22 percent from last quarter and 58 percent from second-quarter 2007.