Foreclosures in Garfield Heights

June 1st, 2008 | Tags: Foreclosures

Foreclosures are surfacing in the city of Garfield Heights. It had long been known as the ‘the city of homes’. Today the hearth fires have died down and the city is left with the skeleton of houses that had once been homes – 1,400 of them. One in ten houses are in some stage of foreclosure. In Cuyahoga County the number is rising while property value is falling.

Behind each foreclosure is a personal tale of woe. Barb Vaughn was proud of her tree-lined house in a quiet corner of Garfield Heights. She personally tended to its upkeep. Today she has to extend her efforts to the vacant unit adjacent to her place. It has been in the market for 18 months crying out for a buyer. There are four other houses in the block. Just out of peek Barb had her house valued only to find that it had gone by $13,000 from what it was two years ago. She is thinking about reassessing it so that the tax also goes down. This will mean less revenue for the government now saddled with the extra work of seeing to crime and health related problems arising from vacant houses.

City officials are reporting that many like Barb are asking for tax reductions. Many have already done it. Yet Garfield Heights is in the red for $1.3 million. Mayor Tom Longo said that during the first half of 2007 property taxes were less by half a million. This meant there were no funds for doing other priority jobs like building roads or buying equipments. On an average these cost $465 per year. With gas price rise the situation is worsening. It needs a lot of rethinking. Vacant positions in government posts are not being filled up. Income tax rates are being increased.

The First Suburbs Development Council consists of a consortium of cities lying next to Cleveland. Its executive director Luke Frazier says that the consortium too is struggling to keep its head above water. There are no additional revenues to meet additional problems arising out of vacant foreclosed houses. Not only are house taxes pending but also without residents there is none there to pay income taxes. Banks are selling off the houses to investors for peanuts. The investors are not paying taxes. The owners of some houses just cannot be traced – the banks and investors have all moved away like rats leaving the sinking ship.