Time to think

The home foreclosure/mortgage crisis is having impacts for beyond the blur of headlines and numbers. Admidst the tragedy and sorrow of people losing their homes, there must be a pony. We just have to be alert enough to find it.

Can't Pay Your Mortgage? Trash Your House and Leave.

On the lookout for disturbing trends? Here's one for your pile: According to a recent article in Fortune, there has been a noticeable increase in not just fraud but arson that has kept pace with the housing depression. Professionals in the insurance and lending industry are bracing themselves for all manner of similar situations, as homeowners either trash, or simply leave their trash lying around their houses, often taking off without even claiming their furniture. This is already a dirty problem in the housing business, with owners, lenders and banks having to figure out a way to stick each other with the check when tenants destroy their property on their way out the door. Woe is the person left behind to clean up the chaos.

"We just estimated a trashout yesterday where we're going to have to drain the pool," one Fontana, CA resident posted on AgentsOnline.Net, a resource and idea site for realtors, "and the stench from it when you enter the backyard is overwhelming. Then, of course there are mosquitoes all over the top and it's been sitting so long without chemicals that it's green on top and murky black on the bottom. We've already had to refuse one pool because of its really creepy condition and I'm not so sure about this one either. [I] just hope we don't find the previous homeowner at the bottom when we drain it."

Link

My initial thought was: What use could be made of those empty pools? Storage for rainfall capture? Cistern?

What about the homes themselves? Could they be bought and converted to low-income housing? That sure would enourage diversity and the rehabilitation would supply honest work. I think back to the fact there is hardly a community in the country that did not benefit and still is enjoying the work of a WPA-era project. Schools, roads, bridges, post offices, parks and rest areas... the list goes on and on. Why not now? Why can't we do something to improve everyone's life?

What is needed and what would work in your community?