Where do they go, the new nomads? What happens to the families who’ve lost their homes in foreclosure?
What happens to the families who have to flee their apartments when the buildings’ owners go bankrupt?
They wander. They search for cheap housing. They double up. They crowd into places where they left years ago.
The tide of humanity shifting about the Chicago area because of the mortgage crisis was clearly laid out by Geoff Smith of the Woodstock Insitute at the briefing we just held.
So what can the ethnic news media do?
It can write about the families dumped into the housing market. It can track the greater losses suffered by blacks and Latinos in Chicago, losses that swell in neighborhoods like Austin and Lawndale, and it can show how community groups are trying to deal with the crisis.
As Andrea Frye of the National Training and Information Center explained, the problem is only getting worse and more complex. Her organization is a good source if you are writing about this.
So, too, the Woodstock Institute has date and experts that you can use to make a human story truly important. Their website:
And here is a page one story from the New York Times about how the foreclosure crisis is worse for blacks and Hispanics in the New York City. But the way I read the figures, the losses are even greater here in the Chicago area.
