Who will secure all the foreclosed homes if a storm does approach? No one really knows....Share this scary story with your mayor, your realtor friends, bankers, investors, and animal-loving friends and rescue & emergency workers
AP IMPACT: Foreclosures add to hurricane hazards - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/ap_on_re_us/stress_map_hurricane_foreclosures
***COMMENT FROM CHERYL LANG, President of Houston-based Integrated Mortgage Solutions, and FOUNDER & PRESIDENT of NOPAWSLEFTBEHIND.ORG---posted here with permission:
On 6/1/09, Cheryl Lang <cheryl@nopawsleftbehind.org> wrote:
Hi Liz,
This has been a concern in our industry forever but more in the past 2 years when the crisis began. We all breathe a little sigh of relief when we don’t get a direct hit in these areas. The problem is that we can’t predict where the hurricane will hit and having people out in mass to board these homes causes a lot of logistical problems, manpower issues and causes municipal code violations. We can’t leave the homes boarded indefinitely because of blight and a boarded up home is a huge red flag for drug dealers, prostitution rings, dog fighting rings (they like to house their fighters in vacant homes), etc. It really is a catch 22 that has no easy answers. And yes, it’s a hazard for the people who do own homes in those areas. If it were me and having lived in hurricane prone areas for most of my adult life, I’d probably take it upon myself to board the vacant neighboring house…
Thanks for passing this along. It is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Cheryl
CHERYL LANG
Founder and President
cheryl@nopawsleftbehind.org
O 281.717.0055
C 281.605.8390
http://www.nopawsleftbehind.org/
16225 Park Ten Place
Suite 105
Houston, TX 77084
