Posts (RSS)Skateboarders Find Use of Repossession Homes
Foreclosures mean misfortune for thousands of homeowners. But some get creative and tried to make something positive out of the crisis.
Take the case of pool skaters in Fresno, California who decided to use the backyards of repossession homes where abandoned pools are located.
It used to be that pool skaters in the city converged at the old abandoned pool at Fresno’s Vagabond hotel. According to Josh Peacock, a pool skater, the Vagabond pool has been the favorite hangout of skateboarders for 15 years.
However, when the city allowed a developer to cover the pool at the Vagabond, skateboarders decided to use the abandoned pools at repossession homes. According to skateboarders, sometimes they ask permission to use the pools, but sometimes they just trespass. They believed that by using these abandoned pools in repossession homes, they are doing a service for the neighborhoods.
The foreclosure crisis has created a health-related problem associated with abandoned pools in repossession homes. Most of these abandoned pools have stagnant water that is a favorite breeding ground of mosquitoes. And city officials are concerned that these mosquitoes may cause a West Nile virus epidemic.
What these pool skaters do is pump out the water from the pool, and in the process taking away the mosquitoes and make the pools safe. By using the pools, skateboarders also help the city by attracting skaters from other parts of the world.
The Central Valley is the center of skateboarding. To take advantage of the popularity of this extreme sport, Fresno has constructed several skate parks. However, most skateboarders prefer to use a pool because they claimed that skate parks do not have the same appeal as pools.
The popularity of pool skateboarding and the use of abandoned pools in repossession homes have caught the attention of filmmaker Steve Payne who plans to depict the economic and foreclosure crisis through the growth of pool skating in Fresno.
The number of California’s repossession homes increased by almost 36 percent in the first quarter of 2009. For the same quarter, foreclosure filings were made on 230, 915 homes, a 35 percent rise from the last quarter the previous year and 36 percent higher from the first quarter of 2008.
The unabated increase in the number of repossession homes in the state is attributed to its high unemployment rate, undervalued home prices and a large distressed property inventory.