Foreclosure Crisis is Especially Hard on Tenants

April 1st, 2009 | Tags: Foreclosure Crisis

The raging foreclosure crisis is especially hard on tenants. Felicia Robinson is one of the unfortunate many. She lives with her 6-year-old cousin in 825 NW 70th Street and has to pour a bucket of water to drain the toilet in their Florida apartment in Miami. Her owner hasa been foreclosed upon and the results are dire for tenants like her.

After slogging at her work the whole day and caring for her three children Latasha Jones is not happy about going from door to door in her housing complex to collect subscriptions for meeting the water bill of the unit. But she has no other alternative – the foreclosed landlord had abandoned the unit together with payment of bills.

For the last one year often the water supply has been often cut off in this complex comprising of 11 units located in the Liberty City area of Miami. Finally they ceased to pay rent and took the issue into their own grip forming a kind of rough condo association so as to be able to manage the complex.

Foreclosures are posing special problems for renters in apartment complexes. Here jobs like garbage collection, maintenance of premises and sundry repairs are included in the rent being paid to the landlords. But when the latter slips into foreclosure the services invariably stop because bills remain unpaid. Many are forced to move out. But the low-income tenants do not have alternatives before them. They have nowhere to go and neither do they have the ready cash to meet shifting expenses, pay security and rent advance.

Celeste Brown lives in one of these derelict apartments for the last seven years. A year ago the unit was foreclosed upon and the representative of Great Florida Bank notified the tenants to vacate the premises by 31st December to enable the new owner to make necessary repairs. Catherine Jackson has been residing here for the last 18 years with her husband and has never failed to pay the rent.

The rental market in South Florida comprises of small independent buildings similar to the ones Jackson and Brown occupy. For years the rental market had remained undisturbed. But things started getting hot when speculators with little experience started snapping up properties in the hope for quick gains. Their wrong calculations are now forcing hapless tenants on to the streets due to no fault of theirs.