bank run blog

This piece, a rare feature from the Associated Press, is causing quite a stir tonight :

Activists Bare Teeth Over Foreclosures

In Fight Against Foreclosures, Ornery Activists Tackle Countrywide, Nation’s Biggest Lender

“CLEVELAND Folks on Humphrey Hill Drive were still waking up on the icy Saturday morning the shark hunters came to town. They rounded the suburban traffic circle in a pair of rented school buses after a half-hour ride from far more modest neighborhoods, rumbling to a stop at the Garmone family’s driveway. Forty-two caffeinated Clevelanders piled out, their leaders carrying bullhorns.”

The story goes on to profile “an in-your-face activist group called the East Side Organizing Project” that has used confrontational tactics to call attention to the human cost of the housing and banking crises in one US city. Cleveland’s situation is bleak and has been since at least 2004, putting it ahead of the market, and making it a useful model for similar American cities. The AP article surveys the scene :

“The white house on the opposite corner — its front porch ripped away by scavengers — fell to foreclosure last year. The home behind it — blue with plank-covered windows — went soon after.

A few doors down from Gardner, three homes in a row are abandoned. Three of the four across from them are vacant, too. It’s not like some manicured suburban neighborhood, where it’s a guess if a house is empty. Here, shredded curtains flap from holes where windows used to be. The silver fringes of insulation hang from walls where aluminum siding has been stripped for resale.” full story

Also see this article from Friday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer, which focuses on poverty issues with regard to the upcoming presidential primary elections : Presidential primary issues : poverty