The foreclosure epidemic is sweeping across the nation like an unstoppable force. What can cities do to manage the effects of foreclosure? Andrea Ryan, from Lawrence, Massachusetts, has a local answer. She is an urban sociologist and currently works as the Housing Manager for the City of Lawrence Community Development Department. 

Cities are complex, living, breathing entities that need to be cared for responsibly to be healthy and vibrant. Unfortunately, we as city leaders and concerned community members now must face the effects of foreclosure—this virus that threatens our residents’ senses of security, our neighborhoods’ safety, and our cities’ economic, social, and even psychological well-being.

The good news is that no matter how large or small our city is, or how many or few resources we may have, there are things we each can do to support our homeowners (and their tenants), stave off the kinds of things that foster sharp neighborhood decline, and even plan for opportunities to improve on current housing conditions. 

My city, Lawrence, Massachusetts, has been doing this. Lawrence is a former mill city located approximately 30 miles north of Boston. We have roughly 70,000 residents, approximately 65% of whom are Hispanic. For all sorts of historic, economic, and social reasons, we can be considered a “struggling” city. Indeed, even as we make hard-won progress on many fronts, we now must face new setbacks as a result of the recent housing crisis. For example, five years ago, we were encouraged to see our most distressed neighborhoods improving rapidly as a result of increased homeownership. It is understandably disheartening to learn that much of it was built on shaky financial foundation and to watch the rippling effects of the downturn harm our residents and our neighborhoods.   

Among our other challenges, as with similarly “struggling” cities, city coffers have just barely enough to cover the basics.  Despite this, we have found ways to work with the tools we have as a city government and the strengths we have within our community to tackle three specific elements head-on: outreach, counseling, and education; the tracking and monitoring of at-risk and vacant properties; and plans to redevelop properties that couldn’t otherwise be “saved,” working to ensure they end up in “attentive” hands. Partners have come together to figure out how to treat both the foreclosure virus and its symptoms. 

Leveraging Partnerships: Outreach and Counseling

Early on, and long before it became a national daily news item, we were lucky to have had our non-profit partners “on the ground,” reporting back to folks in and outside of the community that things weren’t looking good. Too many homeowners were in crisis. Too many people were beginning to fall behind in their mortgages. Too many people were losing their homes. 

Acting on this information and the preliminary work and superior commitment of our partners, the city took on the role of facilitator of the soon to be named Lawrence Housing Partnership. A necessary venue for information sharing and coordinated planning, the group grew to include more housing related non-profits as well as representatives from nearly every bank serving the city. In 2007, we put together three events, what we called “mortgage clinics,” designed to offer expert one-on-one guidance to homeowners by reviewing their mortgage documents and their options. We also drafted policy recommendations in response to the governor’s initiative and found ways to partner and collaborate to best serve local families who needed immediate intervention. Today, many of these early efforts have grown into a region-wide foreclosure education center led by Lawrence CommunityWorks, our largest and most active CDC, and supported in large part by state funds.

Leveraging City Policy-Making

Under the Mayor’s direction, numerous city departments are actively engaged in the pro-active efforts of the Mayor’s Vacant Property Task Force. A vehicle for information sharing and rapid responses to neighbor complaints and safety issues, the group has compiled a database to record and track at-risk and vacant properties city-wide. Each property record includes information ranging from its status in the foreclosure process, who or what entity currently owns the property, property conditions, including fire hazards and safety risks.

Building on these efforts, our City Council also passed an ordinance that requires all lenders who take over property at foreclosure to register with the city and follow certain guidelines for securing and maintaining the property. The ordinance allows for fines to be levied for property owners who do not keep the properties up to minimum standards. And, owners are required to place inconspicuous notices on their buildings so that city firefighters, police officers, and inspectors can respond most effectively if they are concerns about the property.

The information accessible through the database, and the muscle granted by the ordinance gives the city the tools it needs to help prevent the otherwise inevitable neighborhood decline that creeps up as vacancy rates grow. The city’s efforts reinforce to our residents that we are paying attention and taking our responsibility seriously. 

Leveraging Partnerships: Housing Redevelopment

While we are all concerned about the fate of individual homeowners and know that keeping them in their homes in the first place is often ideal, despite our best efforts, many properties will go to foreclosure. In a declining housing market, particularly one in a “struggling” city, these houses could be sitting there for quite a while. When they do sell, who will become the new owners? Will they be speculator-landlords hoping to rent properties for maximum price with minimum attention? Or, is there a way to ensure that the properties end up in the hands of responsible and responsive owners (i.e., “good” landlords) whose investment will contribute to the well-being within the community rather than simply draw their personal benefits out?

Collectively, the city, Lawrence CommunityWorks and other local and statewide partners are trying to find ways to get the properties into the hands of “responsible” developers. We are beating the bushes looking for enough funding to support large-scale acquisition and rehab, and working cooperatively with our local delegation as well as our state senator to put feasible plans together. While some ideas have been floated, we have yet to put one to the test. No doubt we will soon.

As hard as we have worked, we certainly haven’t put all the pieces together perfectly all of the time. Collaboration is hard work under the best of circumstances—whether between city departments or among community organizations. And it seems to create as many headaches as it generates creative solutions. 

The lesson, therefore, is not that Lawrence has been doing everything just right, or even that Lawrence’s efforts are particularly unique compared with other cities working just as hard or harder to manage their local crisis. The lesson is that our relatively strapped city has stepped up to take a proactive approach and do things that matter. As a city—as a community—we have acknowledged both our responsibility and our opportunity to leverage what we can to fend off the virus that threatens our homeowners’ security, our neighborhoods’ safety, and our city’s health and vitality. 

I am proud of the work we have been doing, but there is plenty more to be done. Yet, if we continue to watch closely, listen intently, and act responsibly, we can all do right by our communities and the people whose lives are directly affected by our leadership both the good and bad times.   

Andrea Ryan is an urban sociologist and holds a Ph.D. from Boston University. She currently works as the Housing Manager for the City of Lawrence Community Development Department. On behalf of Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, she wishes to publicly thank all of the members of the Partnership for their ongoing commitment and hard work, the university partners for their useful contributions, and the city’s delegation and state officials for their continued attentiveness to and support for our community.