MANDEL SCHOOL
NEWS AND EVENTS
July 09, 2008
Cleveland Free Times: Cites Center in "Tatered"
Tattered: Rampant Foreclosures Have Torn The Very Fabric Of The Region
By Dan Harkins
An article in the Cleveland Free times, Volume 15, Issue 62 Published July 9th, 2008, quotes poverty Center research in its detailed assessment of one neighborhood's experience with foreclosures and shrinkage.
"According to a study released late last month by the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case, 'Even when they are compared with whites of similar income, [African Americans'] rates of receiving high-cost subprime loans are two to four times higher. Racial segregation and disparities in the loan products African Americans receive play in a highly significant spatial concentration of foreclosures that brings down surrounding property values and further fuels the foreclosure process.'
This dynamic is illustrated best by overlaying maps showing the highest concentrations of subprime foreclosures and the highest concentrations of black people. Each data set forms a perfectly overlapping crescent moon stretching from East Cleveland to downtown and then back southeast. That little tidbit was presented at a local congressional subcommittee meeting held by US Rep. Dennis Kucinich and is the kind of news that flips Turner's ordinarily placid demeanor to boil.
'There's profit in poverty,' she says. 'And there's no doubt that African Americans have suffered under decades of institutional racism. Fine. But what are we going to do about it? Are we going to educate ourselves or are we going to be fooled again?' "
For the summary of PATHWAYS TO FORECLOSURE: A Longitudinal Study of Mortgage Loans, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, 2005-2008 Click here. But the full research paper can be found here.
A summary of the Center on Urban Poverty's second testimony submitted to the congressional subcommittee meeting can be viewed here.
This article was reprised at REALNEO here, in January 2010