Home foreclosure crisis kicks desperate families to the curb

It’s a bright spring morning in May, but for a family of five on Detroit’s west side, things are looking dismal. The family — a disabled grandmother, a mother and three children under 18 — was evicted Wednesday, despite strong community support and a lawyer on their side.

Thirty-Sixth District Judge E. Lynise Bryant-Weeks refused to hear a motion April 25 to halt the eviction process, because she said the motion was over the 10-day limit for an appeal. The family’s attorney, Jerry Goldberg, argued that there were extenuating circumstances and that the judge could give more consideration if the evicting party, a Wall Street securities fund, were not unduly harmed.

Bryant-Weeks said that if everyone came back with a lawyer after an eviction notice, the entire system would collapse. “It was an outrageous ruling by the judge,” said Goldberg, who is also an organizer for the Michigan Emergency Committee against War and Injustice. “People need lawyers when they go to court; there are many violations of the law.” Goldberg estimated the house was worth $30,000.

The grandmother underwent triple-bypass heart surgery at the time of the foreclosure, and the mother of three had lost her job. But the grim economic state makes this family a common case.

Continued -“This is a typical situation,” said Goldberg. He said there are 73,000 foreclosure filings in Wayne County alone. In March 2,000 new foreclosures were filed in Wayne County, according to RealtyTrac, Inc. statistics.

“Courts are heavy with these cases,” said Goldberg. “It’s turned into an assembly-line process in cities like Flint, Detroit, Benton Harbor [and] Pontiac.” He said 99.9 percent of people represent themselves in these cases.

State legislators have been working on ways to ease this crisis. In April, Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, introduced a bill that would give residents a two-year mortgage foreclosure moratorium and while making reasonable payments determined by a judge. The bill was inspired by the Michigan Moratorium Act, which was passed during the Great Depression, and would be in effect for three years.

“What I’m proposing today is not unprecedented in Michigan, and other states whose foreclosure crises aren’t even as bad as ours are already taking similar action,” said Clarke at an April press conference in Detroit. “It’s time to get serious about this problem and offer relief to the people who need it most.”

Last year Massachusetts passed a law for a six-month moratorium on mortgage foreclosures that involved unfair lending agreements. This year two New York senators introduced a bill for a one-year freeze on foreclosures.

Grass-roots efforts have also sprung up to aid the passage of the two-year foreclosure moratorium bill, including the Moratorium Now coalition to stop foreclosures and evictions.

But for now another little house on the west side of Detroit stands empty, adding to the many other abandoned houses in the area. Goldberg said he didn’t know where the family went after leaving the house.