Cook County mortgage foreclosure rates echo recent national reports that indicate that foreclosures have tripled since the housing boom ended in 2005, and now represent 2.75 percent of home mortgages.
To hear the statistics is difficult, however, in the Clerk’s Office’s Chancery Division, Clerk Brown can see firsthand the real lives that the numbers reflect. “On any given day, I can watch the men and women who are being threatened with losing their homes. Many of them have young children or they may be elderly. It’s a devastating spectacle,” said Clerk Brown.
“As a public official watching increasing numbers of people lose their homes, I was compelled to find some way to help them,” she pointed out.
In 2008, Clerk Brown convened two Mortgage Foreclosure Education Summits, during the months of October and November. The summits provided information to individuals affected by the current housing crisis. At the summits, Clerk Brown arranged for volunteer attorneys to review foreclosure cases and provide legal advice to participants.
The Summits provided the public with critical information for coping with the foreclosure and credit crises. There were informational sessions on how to handle the foreclosure process, knowing your legal rights, lending options, reverse mortgages for seniors, how to obtain a mortgage surplus, and bankruptcy procedures.
“To abate the current mortgage foreclosure crisis, all of our best efforts are required,” said Clerk Brown. “My plans are to present more Mortgage Foreclosure Education Summits throughout Cook County this year.
“Additionally, I have been working with Action Now, a nonprofit Chicago housing organization, in efforts to promote a foreclosure program that brokers negotiations between mortgage lenders and homeowners who have fallen behind in their payments. This particular program has been successful in the city of Philadelphia, and I would like to see a similar endeavor that would work for Cook County.”
Clerk Brown concluded, “We have to provide information to our citizens about how to correct their mortgage foreclosure situation or, better still, how to avoid becoming a mortgage foreclosure statistic altogether.”