Fresh Loaf

This is a Soapbox submission by a guest blogger.

Trouble in Paradise

By Hannah Palmer

When ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to Stumptown, I was just as excited as everyone else at the office. The project site was one block from my high school, on a street where I had trick-or-treated, babysat and toilet-papered houses. Ahyoka Drive was one of the nicest streets in a low income neighborhood, which, by 2005, wasn’t saying much.

During the shoot, I cruised by to get a glimpse of the action. It was winter and through the naked trees I could see the construction zone, surrounded by cranes and lit up like a movie set. People with bullhorns and Starbucks were moving about purposefully. People from LA!

I even tuned in to the Sunday night broadcast to get a look at the interior, “meet” the family and share in the community-wide freakout. And I’ve cruised by a few times since the “dream house” was finished and the cameras cleared out. With its turrets and archways and copper gutters, the place looks like nothing else in Clayton County. It inspires gawking.

So now Lake City’s “Extreme Makeover” home is making the news again. I saw the headlines and thought, great. One more embarrassing story to put Stumptown in the national news. I was worried by the grouchy remarks of Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt who said, “It’s aggravating. You do that much work, and they just squander it.”

He’s “aggravated.” The Harper family is losing their home. I thought a touch more compassion would be appropriate. And what did he think would happen? That they would live happily ever after? (more…)

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VACANCY: Atlanta police have a new burglary unit dedicated to monitoring houses that have been foreclosed or abandoned, as copper thieves grow in numbers and audacity.

CITY COUNCIL: Wants to keep Fire Station No. 7 open.

SOUTH BY NORTHWEST: Northwest Airlines tells its employees that it may move up to 400 jobs to Atlanta.

JACKSON COUNTY: Gets state approval to sell discounted gas to the county’s nine municipalities, the first county in Georgia to do so.

BLUE JEAN BANDITS: Five suspects are arrested.

WITHOUT A PADDLE: Fifty thousand tons of sewage spill into the ground in Gainesville, entering a tributary of Balus Creek.

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Home foreclosures in United States in March: 234,685

Home foreclosures in Georgia in March: 11,047

Percent increase from February 2008: 44.8

Percent increase from March 2007: 63.2

Number of states with more home foreclosures than Georgia in March: 3

Percentage drop in home sales reported by Atlanta-based homebuilder Ashton Woods in early 2008: 32.1

Number of property liens filed against Atlanta home developer Hedgewood Properties in the first quarter of 2008: 75

Number of liens filed against Hedgewood in 2007: 86

Sources: Atlanta Business Chronicle, U.S. Census Bureau, RealtyTrac.com, 11Alive.com

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What you’re looking at above is not a map showing which states had the hottest summers, most incidences of horrendous animal-cruelty cases, or even political leanings. This map, dear reader, is a state-by-state illustration of foreclosure increases in the nation. The redder you are, the more you had. Note Georgia.

According to RealtyTrac.com — where this map came from — Georgia is ranked fourth in the nation for foreclosure filings in August 2007, up 133.47 percent since the previous year. One out of every 271 households filed for foreclosure.

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Alyssa Abkowitz is off to Gotham City for postgraduate Lois Lane studies at Columbia University’s acclaimed School of Journalism. Alyssa has been a pillar of Creative Loafing reporting for three years. Prior to that, she interned with us while attending Emory University.

Alyssa goes out on a roll — her cover story this week, “The Student Trap,” exposes what the promotional material doesn’t tell you about American InterContinental University. Alyssa’s reporting has focused on those issues that dramatically impact the lives of urban residents (our readers), from AIDS to the “Middle-Class Squeeze” to getting the first media hit on Atlanta’s soaring foreclosure problem. And, she’s been a bulldog at uncovering problems in the management of the Atlanta Police Department — her reports on an overused disorderly conduct ordinance that pumped up statistics for the police brass but did little to fight crime resulted in City Council repealing the law.

Golly, darn, we’re gonna miss you, Alyssa.

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According to a story on CNNMoney.com, Atlanta’s 30310 ZIP code is second only to one in Cleveland as the single ZIP code with the most foreclosures over the past three months.

Cleveland’s 44105 ZIP code had 783 foreclosures, followed by Atlanta’s 30310 (southwest Atlanta) with 709. According to the story:

Many Sun-Belt buyers bought their high-priced houses using 2/28 adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) which featured very low initial, or “teaser,” rates that reset much higher after the first two years of fixed payments.

But ARMs are best used … as credit-repair products. They’re set up for borrowers to show they can keep up mortgage payments and then refinance out into affordable fixed-rate loans after two years.

Many buyers used ARMs to get into a house with little regard for whether they could afford the payments, betting that rising prices could build enough home equity they could tap for cash.

When prices stabilized or fell, that safety valve disappeared. Owners couldn’t pay monthly bills, and they had no equity to draw on.

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