NPR radio had an interview about the high foreclosure rate on January 3. I missed the time period to comment. Here is the comment I was going to post:
All of the posts so far have focused on the foreclosure of HOUSES. I think we also need to look at this disaster in other terms. What about the people?
Realty Trac’s latest post says that there are now 2,173,349 homes in foreclosure in the U.S.. How many people is that? A recent article said the average U.S. home occupancy rate was about 2.7. So, to me, the Realty Trac statistic says that the foreclosure crisis has thrown about 6 MILLION people into the street! Isn’t that about 6 times as many homeless as in the earthquake in Haiti? Shouldn’t our country be reacting to this as a major disaster? When 10,000 were made homeless in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, there was a major outpouring of help. If the number of foreclosures estimated in the headline that kicked off this discussion is true, we will keep duplicating Haiti in this country every 3 MONTHS! on top of the 6 Haiti’s we have already seen. Here’s another way to look at it. U.S. bankers will re-cause a Hurricane Katrina disaster in the U.S. every single day! Doesn’t anyone in the government or the press understand this?
