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Revitalizing Ohio Neighborhoods and Communities
By U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown
Guest Column
The financial crisis devastated homeowners and investors in
Ohio and across the country. In the years since, we’ve made
great progress but we know that the economy cannot fully
recover until the housing market does.
Cleveland’s Thriving Communities Institute estimates that
there are 50,000 abandoned properties in Ohio that have
fallen into disrepair. Vacant properties lower surrounding
property values and can increase the likelihood of crime
within the neighborhood. Ohioans shouldn’t have to shoulder
the burden of revitalizing these neighborhoods when big
banks are to blame for the housing crisis.
In too many cases, banks generated billions in profits by
disregarding the law and foreclosing on homeowners who were
trying to pay their bills on time. When it came to light
that the biggest banks had committed foreclosure fraud and
used robo-signing practices that led to wrongful
foreclosures, these large lenders agreed to pay more than
$36 billion in retribution.
These funds won’t erase the housing crisis, but they can
help reverse its course by providing critical resources for
home rehabilitation, blight removal, and mortgage
counseling.
Bank of America (BOA) recently reached a record-setting
$16.65 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ), which includes $7 billion in consumer relief.
Ohio deserves its fair share of these funds. That’s why I
teamed up with Senator Portman to urge BOA to work with the
Ohio community groups that are leading neighborhood
stabilization efforts as the bank distributes its settlement
funds. By working with local partners who have been fighting
to help homeowners and revitalize Ohio communities, the bank
can ensure that funds will be immediately put to work to
benefit to the areas that need it most.
Ohio was hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. It began here
before it reached many other parts of the country and, until
2012, Ohio had 14 consecutive years of increasing
foreclosures. In 2009, at the height of the crisis, 14,171
homes in Cuyahoga County were in foreclosure. By 2013, that
figure dropped to 8,829, but remains far too high. Ohio’s 22
land banks, local housing counselors, and groups like
Thriving Communities Institute have worked tirelessly to
help Ohioans recover. There’s still more to do, but these
groups have a plan with proven results to use these funds to
continue their efforts to revitalize Ohio neighborhoods.
I urge Bank of America to stand by their promise to aid the
communities that they hurt so badly in the financial crisis,
and invest these settlement funds in Ohio. |
