Pols come up empty on foreclosure fixes

By Scott Van Voorhis

More than 8,700 Bay State residents have lost their homes to foreclosure since January, when state lawmakers began debating an overhaul of the troubled subprime mortgage business.

And the debate goes on.

Yesterday, Attorney General Martha Coakley, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other top political leaders and activists packed a State House hearing hall to push for new regulatory curbs on abusive lending practices. It follows a similar Beacon Hill hearing this summer.

But lawmakers are still at least weeks away from passing a bill that would overhaul the subprime lending business in Massachusetts. The slow pace has prompted concern, including from Secretary of State William Galvin, over the rising toll on homeowners caught up in what has become a foreclosure epidemic.

While much of the subprime package now being discussed is designed to prevent future abuses, it also would give homeowners facing foreclosure 90 days to catch up on their payments.

“Since we have been talking, a lot of people have lost their homes and a lot more have been notified they are in foreclosure,” Galvin said. “They are not really addressing the size of the problem.”

As the debate continues, the number of foreclosures is growing rapidly - up more than 66 percent so far this year over the same period in 2006, The Warren Group reports.

New foreclosure notices are being issued to Massachusetts homeowners now at a rate of more than 2,000 a month, with about 1,000 homes being sold at foreclosure auctions, the Warren Group’s numbers show.

“There really needs to be a greater sense of urgency,” said Joseph Kriesberg, president of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations.

 

 

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