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Apr 30, 2008 9:39 pm US/Eastern
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Foreclosures Impacting Many Residents Across Area
(KDKA)
Foreclosure is a scourge, not just for the people involved, but for entire neighborhoods and towns.
Vacant houses can become depress real estate values, eyesores, fire traps and drug dens and in Allegheny County it seems no town or neighborhood is immune.
One in every 250 homes in Allegheny County is in foreclosure.
"Foreclosure is impacting someone around you, you just don't know it," says Steve Shivak, of Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment.
KDKA's Andy Sheehan is taking a look at foreclosures in our area, he reports:
In the city, foreclosures have hit hardest in Perry South, Chartiers City, Sheraden and Elliot. Also, Allentown, Knoxville and Mount Oliver have rates as high as 70 homes per one-thousand in foreclosure.
In Allegheny County, McDonald is number one in foreclosures per capita followed by Mount Oliver, Oakdale, Glenfield, Elizabeth and Penn Hills, a solid middle class community and the county's largest municipality, which ranks sixth with a rate of 30 of one-thousand homes in foreclosure, or 611 total homes.
One Penn Hills man and his wife say they are fighting to get their home out of foreclosure. Both say they have lost their jobs, fell behind in their mortgage payments, and then struggled to get current, only to be hit with a $10,000 bill from the bank for fines and attorney fees.
"If we can get past the next six months, we should be ok, but we're still at the bank's mercy," the resident told KDKA. "We don't know what they're going to do."
Like many families on the bubble the future is uncertain and the present is full of stress. This past summer foreclosures in the region reached an all-time high and this winter almost topped it.
Many homeowners are still locked into so-called subprime mortgages with adjustable payment rates that will soon be out of their reach. With a recession looming, many others are just a few missed paychecks away from losing their homes.
"So that's why we see it continuing to get worse over the next period of time," said Shivak.
And that's why organizations like the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group, which counsels people in mortgage trouble, are developing an early warning system.
Working with computer scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, they say they are developing maps, which shows red flags like houses in a community where people have fallen behind on their taxes.
"By identifying those people in advance and getting to them we can help them rework their deals to put them into a good mortgage product that will keep them safe and out of foreclosure," added Shivak.
They say they want to intercede with banks on the homeowner's behalf before sheriff deputies come to evict them.
"I'm not saying I like doing them, but when we get a court order and the court order says do the eviction. We do the eviction," said Larry Decker, of the Allegheny County, Sheriff's Department.
Meanwhile, experts say Bethel Park has homes in foreclosure at a rate of 10 per one thousand. Upper St. Clair has nine per one-thousand, Sewickley Heights has eight per one-thousand and Franklin Park, Oakmont and Mount Lebanon come in at seven per one-thousand.
But people in wealthy suburbs of Allegheny County like Fox Chapel, Franklin Park and Sewickley are also losing homes at more than seven homes per one-thousand.
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