Just soak those numbers in for a moment folks. And then, understand that those numbers are just a tiny fraction of the number of foreclosures that could be filed if the banks could a) put their documents together or, b) wanted to deal with tens of thousands of additional homes in their inventory.
The real number that no one has any idea how to get a handle on is how many homes have been abandoned, not just by the homeowner, but by the banks.
When the homeowner walks away, you get the dramatic pictures of a destroyed home. But when a homeowner just stops paying and no foreclosure is filed…or if a foreclosure is filed and the bank does not pursue it (what I call a filed and forgotten case), no one is paying attention to these numbers.
The banks, along with their evil cousins Wall Street and Government, have destroyed this country. Foreclosure is just one of the more visible signs….the massive tumor that belies the awful, menacing rot that festers below the skin.
In a community like Tampa with a large military population, many of these soldiers who cannot find a job…why are we permitting homes to be abandoned? I would like to see soldiers moved into those homes. I would like to see the families of soldiers who are currently serving abroad moved into those homes. How bout every time troops return from serving abroad, they’re handed a map of all the homes that are abandoned in the community?
And then we say to them, thank you soldier. And now we ask one more favor of you. Will you go out and secure these homes? Will you protect the community from further rot and destruction by keeping the power on and the grass mowed? Please keep you and your family safe and warm in these homes that the banks apparently do not want. We could start just moving them in, and then teams of lawyers could file Florida Statute 69.021 actions to provide a formal, final and orderly disposition of the property, vesting it in that soldier’s name.
A modern day GI Bill.
Why do we continue to reward the banks that have made such a god awful mess of all this.
Give the homes to our soldiers, it’s the least we can do.