Posts (RSS)Renters Also Suffer From Foreclosure Listings
A rising number of renters across the country have been made homeless because of the sudden inclusion of their rental homes in foreclosure listings. Oftentimes, they do not know their units have been foreclosed until they are evicted from their units.
Based on data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), an estimated 40 percent of families occupying foreclosed properties are renters. While the percentage affected is almost half of all occupants, there are no regulatory protections for tenants affected by foreclosure listings in most states. As more and more homes are added to foreclosure listings, more and more renters are forced out of dwellings, oftentimes into shelters. Most often also, single mothers with young children are the ones being affected.
In Manassas, Virginia, the homeless advocacy organization SERVE has seen a rapid rise in tenants needing immediate shelter since the last months of 2008. Another shelter in the state has been preparing for an expected influx of low-income families that have been evicted from rental homes added to foreclosure listings.
Linda Couch, deputy director of the NLIHC, said many renters keep up with their payments and their contract requirements. But when they are notified that their units have been included in foreclosure listings, they are not given the help they need and deserve. Other renters are in worse situations because their security deposits and advance payments can not be returned by their landlords because they no longer have the money.
The case of Maria Stephens illustrates the difficult situations of renters caught in the swirl of foreclosure listings and job loss. Stephens and her three young boys lived for seven months in 2008 in a small room in a shelter in Virginia after a series of misfortunes. Her rental home was suddenly foreclosed, her second rental was sold and finally her job was taken away. Stephens related how she struggled as she had a newborn then and two other children under seven.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is working out a solution to the problem of tenants, according to the department’s mortgage finance adviser Bill Apgar. He said President Obama’s budget proposal for 2010 includes a funding of $1 billion for a trust fund that would develop and preserve low-income housing. Also included is a voucher scheme that would enable families to keep their homes from a foreclosed situation.
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