So, the bank foreclosed and threw you out of your home and now they are destroying your home with a bulldozer creating an empty lot. Couldn’t the government at least create a program to keep you, the newly homeless person in your home? Why destroy perfectly good homes? And, where are you supposed to sleep tonight?

Well, then there goes the neighborhood because we all know that the bankers determine the value of your home by comparing it with another home like yours on the block. Because of the recession, people loosing their jobs, there is a large amount of abandoned homes. Vacant homes have been such an eye sore to some neighborhoods that one city Cleveland, Ohio had decided to find a solution by destroying the homes. This is a solution or a gross disgrace of ruining perfectly good homes!

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the great recession has left 1/5^th of all houses vacant. The owners walked away because they wouldn’t or the couldn’t pay a mortgage debt that was as much as twice the value of their home. Cleveland waited 4 years for home values to recover and now they have decided to face facts that the vandalized properties are bringing down the values of the few properties that are not abandoned.

Thousands of homes will be torn down because they are abandoned. A vandal can get about one dollar a pound to recycle vinyl siding and copper pipes .Some of the homes are completely gutted out due to vandalism? Where are the police that are supposed to patrol a city’s streets against the act of vandalisms?

It is happening often in Cleveland that furnaces, fixtures, sinks, plumbing all are gone due to vandalism. Well, then that town is not even watching the places that take copper for cash. There is a failure from all paid agencies to care about anything. The people left are living paycheck to paycheck.

There is a place outside Cleveland called Cinema Park at Miles Drive that was to have been a 100 house development. During the recession the developer went broke leaving just 6 occupied homes that are surrounded by empty acres, streets that go to nowhere and fire hydrants with no buildings near by.

The Cuyahoga county sheriffs office is doing 50 evictions a month. Even people that have been in their homes for over 20 years are being evicted only to leave yet another abandoned home. Then there are the people trying to sell their homes. Well, many have been on the market for over six months with no buyers.

Many have witnessed the value of their homes decrease by as much as 50%. And ¼ th of the houses in that County have been emptied by foreclosure. What used to be vibrant healthy neighborhoods are now reduced to being empty lots.

Banks could stop the wrecking crews if they would only reduce the loan balances on underwater mortgages. They are going to have to write down principal balances. If they do not write down to something realistic, it just guarantees that more people will walk and default. Yes, it will mean losses in the million’s of dollars for the banks. Even with the losses, Someone staying could give something to the loss, and the banks can still make some revenue .

Cuyahoga County ripped down 1,000 homes this year and they have 20,000 more to go. That will cost about 150 Million dollars. It is Christmas time!!! The county would rather spend millions of dollars to destroy your home than to use those funds to help keep you in your home. This 20thCentury version of the popular classic “It’s A Wonderful Life” is a horror film.

In the old movie the bank helped the town recover, ok the film was a fictional story but our present day reality is a horror story for all.!