Abstract

Foreclosure plague is widespread in this decade of very challenging national, state, and local economies, depicting high and long-term depression and protracted double-digit unemployment rates. This decade has also witnessed, in absolute and relative terms, an increasing trend in persons in poverty, families in poverty, extremely low-income renters, persons in housing needs, and pervasive and insidious home foreclosures. The subprime and abusive lending practices had been prevalent in Atlanta urban neighborhoods and counties, leading to menacing foreclosures that affect disproportionately the minorities and elderly, which constitute a set of homeowners particularly ill-equipped, ill-prepared and ill-suited to handle them. The pervasive and waves of the current alarming home foreclosures, as well as the concomitant problems, unarguably beg for aggressive mitigating policy options dealing with the subprime and predatory lending practices and mortgage frauds.