WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we continue our where we live series with a look at Home ownership in the national foreclosure crisis is still going strong in Massachusetts particularly in Mr. Webster ranks among the highest in foreclosures in the state. And what makes this to really stand out is that most of the foreclosed properties are being bought up by outside investors remaining homeowners are saying there goes the neighborhood as renters move in and former homeowners move out. This influx of outsiders an exodus of longtime residents is challenging. Towns Westernesse we look at what it takes to negotiate a housing crisis without compromising the integrity and identity of a community. From there we look at how Buster could be primed to roll out the welcome mat for startups and entrepreneurs. Up next two tales of one city. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Greek parliament is backing the new coalition government today prime minister Lucas

Papademos his government won a confidence vote with a comfortable majority paving the way for the former central banker to oversee the country's new austerity measures and to secure the euro zone's bailout agreement. An economist is also overseeing the Italian government struggle to survive a financial meltdown. Mario Monti has been sworn in as prime minister as the BBC's Alan Johnston reports from Rome Monti says the absence of party politicians in his new government will help the government's battle plan against its crippling debt. The swearing in ceremony was held in the palace of these head of state President George or Nepal the Tanana one by one the new ministers took the oath of office. All of them technocrats experts in their fields but unelected. It's in these financial crisis has deepened the extreme pressure brought to bed by the international money markets has pushed democracy aside. That's the BBC's Alan Johnston reporting. Syrian government supporters

angry about the Arab League's condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad are behind today's vandalism on embassies in Damascus. They reportedly attacked the UAE and Moroccan missions as members of the Arab League meet in Morocco to formally suspend Damascus for its deadly crackdown on political dissidents. As a result of the latest violence France has recalled its ambassador to Damascus. The United Nations estimates more than thirty five hundred people have died in the last seven months of unrest in Syria. A salvo of missiles fired from a suspected U.S. drone aircraft has killed more than a dozen people in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. NPR's Julie Rovner. Julie McCarthy says the attack is believed to have destroyed a base of the Pakistan Taliban. Local authorities in the main South Waziristan city of wana confirmed the attack on a militant compound early Wednesday. They said the area that borders North Waziristan is a hub of both Pakistani and Afghan militants including the

network. Sources in South Waziristan say that the area had been under the influence of the Pakistan Taliban. The group is an umbrella organization for Pakistani Islamist outfits and has claimed responsibility for scores of suicide and terrorist attacks inside the country. An attack on the Pakistan Taliban would seem to indicate cooperation between Washington and Islamabad in the targeting of drone strikes strikes that are highly unpopular with the Pakistan public. Julie McCarthy NPR News Islamabad. Oil prices continue to climb which could force the cost of gas to head back up today oil reached $100 a barrel for the first time in four months. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is down 54 points at twelve thousand forty two. This is NPR News. Wall Street protesters plan a day of civil disobedience and marches in New York tomorrow even though their encampment was cleared out early yesterday under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's order. Activists say

they've been allowed to return to a time but police are enforcing a ban on sleeping in the park. Roman Catholic bishops calling for greater protection of religious freedom say they plan to expand post abortion counseling at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops officials have announced plans to extend professional and spiritual counseling to more women and their families. Backers argue that women who terminated a pregnancy are a greater risk of psychological problems but the American Psychological Association says there is no evidence to support that. For the first time in nearly six months a Russian spacecraft has brought three new crew members to the International Space Station. Peter Van Dyke in Moscow says the mission is a welcome relief to the Russian Space Agency after a series of failures. That's astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian's Anton scapular of in Anatolia varnishing of the first astronauts to travel to the space station since the space shuttle retired in July. They were greeted warmly by their three crewmates who returned to earth next week. Burbank will take

over command of the station where the three new arrivals will live until March. The mission was delayed from September due to the crash of a Russian cargo spacecraft an organist. The retirement of the shuttle means Russian Soyuz craft are the only way for astronauts to get to and from the space station after an uncertain few months crew levels will return to normal with another three manned Soyuz mission in December. For NPR News I'm Peter Vandyke in Moscow. And I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the George Lucas Educational Foundation celebrating 20 years of being a source for what works in education. More at Edgewood topia dot org. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. Well it's been four years since the foreclosure crisis began four years for the all too familiar sight of boarded up empty homes to become a part of the new normal. Until recently most thought the

rising number of foreclosures were confined to the city. But it turns out the suburbs and rural areas have also been hit hard. None more so than central Massachusetts which boasts the highest rate of foreclosures in Massachusetts with Webster County. At the center of the crisis Joining me to discuss how the foreclosure crisis is affecting wester are Grace Ross. She's one of the co-founders of the Worcester anti foreclosure team. She's also the coordinator for the Massachusetts alliance against predatory lending. Judy Jacobson is with us. She's the deputy director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. We're also joined by Jacqueline Bush on Jackson. She's the director of housing for the city of Worcester. Thank you all for joining us today. I can't. Thanks for having us. Judy let me start with you. Statistically how bad is it. Well there is some seemingly good news on the horizon which is that the number of housing units are in distress has decreased from a year ago for instance down about 29

percent. But unfortunately that may be just sort of a little bit misleading because we think that it's a result of the slowdown in foreclosures because of all the hullabaloo about robo signing and mistakes and errors being made in the process. So recent data shows that new foreclosure petitions are up. So from May to September this year the new petitions are up 67 percent and Bush for county actually it's up 71 percent in the favor of the worst in Wester. Let me extract a couple of things from what you said first of all distressed properties what does that mean. Properties in the process of foreclosure or that have been foreclosed on are still owned by the lender for up to two years is this. The definition that we use and robo signing just so people understand that that was a controversy that swirled around but explain it if you would. Well there's a there's a lot of technical requirements to print properly foreclose on a property and there's been a lot of mistakes made and a

lot of errors. And it's a you know pretty important thing that if you're taking somebody's property away that you do it correctly robo signing really refers to people signing affidavits that they have personal knowledge of the facts in those affidavits and that they actually seem to not have any knowledge of. OK. And a lot of banks got in trouble for doing that just to put the. Yeah but not that great. Yeah I say that yeah. You go back since foreclosure takes usually a year or two to happen in Massachusetts if you go back and you look through the documents there's all sorts of stuff weird signatures. There have been issues about folks whose signatures look 20 different ways clearly was not signed by one person and yet their names on a lot of different documents so you're on the front lines of dealing with the folks behind the statistics. What does it look like when you're driving around. WISTER County and Wister city Yeah I live in was a star and it's it depends where you are in the city but it's really rough there are parts of the city where literally you drive down a

block and there's more empty houses than not. And it's everywhere in the city now there were folks who claimed oh you know it's just in the more inner city areas of the city and it's we knew that was not going to be true because of the underwater statistics the folks who owed more on their mortgage than the value of the home. But in higher area income areas it's taken a little longer for the impact of folks being in financial trouble to sort of come home to people. But we have a lot of vacant properties Wister as a city was sort of out front in trying to deal with vacant properties before we knew how much of that was connected to the foreclosure crisis that was increasing. So they've got some good policies around that and actually we helped our organization the wistaria the foreclosure team brought to the city of Worcester an ordinance that Boston had passed and a few other folks requiring banks when they foreclose to register with the city sell the property the city knows who owns the property but in Worcester they actually require a $5000 cash bond from the banks for

each foreclosure as well because otherwise what cities do is they put out the money to board it up to deal with the increase in violence and police activity and the need to do extra services and the cities end up paying for it and then they end up begging the banks just like the homeowners are to try and get the banks to be responsive so Wister took a step out and put in this $5000 cash bond so that they can draw the money down if they spend it. If they don't spend it it goes back to the banks of the bank is it. Responsible community partner then they don't spend the money they'll get the money back when the bank resells the property but too much in Worcester that's cost the city literally. We were figuring if the city had collected all of its fees under that ordinance that it was around 40 million more dollars just in one year to cover the foreclosures. Jacqueline Bush on JACKSON So that's one way. As a response to the growing foreclosure closure crisis and was dirty but because it was so intense in your area the city had to start and the area had to start thinking about new ways of handling it what. Describe some of that

activity for us. Sure I agree with grace in that we are now seeing foreclosures throughout the city so. We essentially had this wave of foreclosures as a result of subprime lending and now we're seeing foreclosures as a result of the economic downturn so you know there's no neighborhood that has been left unaffected as a result. The city has taken some proactive measures to look to stabilize neighborhoods assist owners who are struggling who have not yet been foreclosed upon. And to also have you know attempt to prevent further further slide of property values for that for those neighbors who remain so. How do you know they're struggling do they come to you and say worst I'm struggling. Well the property is just they're underwater. They're like their neighbors if if you know a property on the street goes into foreclosure you know I think there's this two mile they call it a two mile ripple so everything within two miles of the property values are affected as a

result of that single foreclosure. When folks are looking at market studies certainly a foreclosure in your immediate neighborhood is going to affect the value of your property and thus you know cause further financial struggles where you're now even even more so underwater than you had been previously. So what the city has done is we've taken a number of proactive steps to look at the foreclosure process. We've utilized the limited resources that we have to attempt to leverage the private market Grace referred to the ordinance that was the city has passed where banks are providing $5000 bonds. So that's certainly one way that the city has looked at foreclosure We've also looked to assist property owners to avoid foreclosure so prevention has to be part of any strategy that we talk about here. You know it doesn't make any sense to be reactionary if we can't be proactive as well so

the city manager effectively came out with this strategy called Save our neighborhoods and it looks to stabilize assessed value and in force. And what that does is it provides an interdepartmental into divisional tool for all city departments to come together to look at this as a citywide crisis and deal with this in a way where we can. Prevent further slide of property values and also keep those properties that are bank owned and that have been abandoned secure so that we're not finding people who are you know kind of breaking into these properties causing causing further decline and or you know causing health and safety concerns in the neighborhoods. So here's a question why is has the federal government had any influence if you know there you are here you all are trying to deal with your own area. You know focusing on it which is a good thing. But you know we

keep hearing those of us who are not immediately impacted that there are programs that have been put forth by the federal government. But what is the impact. So it depends on what programs you're looking at. Thank you. The federal programs that have sort of been in different ways sort of let's bail out the homeowner type programs have consistently run into problems with the way they were designed so that they'll design something to say they go oh this could help 4 million people across the country but when you look at the implementation they've narrowed the definition in ways that end up excluding a lot of the people who might be able to be helped and because most of these programs have been a voluntary participation by the lenders. The percentage of folks they actually reach comparison to the projected numbers is minuscule. I mean it's tiny. So if I'm understanding you it's like if I'm wearing black on Tuesday looking left I might qualify that if I don't it's true of every program I mean the e h l p program that we were very excited about because there have been more.

Input from community groups across the country was supposed to help people who were either unemployed or who had lost at least 15 percent of the household income in the last couple of years which you could really look around Massachusetts say that could be almost anybody right so somebody was in foreclosure and have those qualifications they were supposed to be able to get the money. But we had enough money allocated for the state of Massachusetts to help about a little over twelve hundred people. It ended up being less than half of that even though well over twelve hundred people had made it through the initial qualification when it came down to the pedal to the metal moment. Not very many people ended up getting through the hoops. So we really need that money and it's part of why I have been so proud of this joint effort between the community groups and the city of Worcester around this ordinance for the $5000 from the banks because we're seeing a drain out of every aspect of her economy. And it was one way for the city to step in and say we need to capture some of the money that's draining away. And that's why we're seeing like in

Worcester there are neighborhoods where the you know the mama papa stores on the corners have closed because regular people just they aren't dropping by for their coffee or their muffin or you know to pick up something because nobody has the right limbs and Jackie was talking about. Was there any way to see this coming that it would get as bad as it did. We saw across the nation four years ago it started creeping. But you know to know that this area wester County is you know the highest of the I mean it's pretty startling. Well it's it's it's not just Western County Massachusetts and obviously and even in fact you know we're doing a whole lot better than Las Vegas and Florida and California. So it is all we're not in Vegas here is you know I would say you know I mean I guess I'd say a couple of things. One is that you know some of us have worked very hard for many years on good homeownership and there is some really great examples from my agency runs a program called the soft second loan program we've helped almost 16000 low income

homebuyers become successful homeowners with delinquency and foreclosure lates below prime mortgage loans not sub prime We don't compare ourselves to subprime we we really look incredibly good compared to subprime. So there. So you know that's something that we've done we've done well other groups have done well but you know the greed came in and we suffer a number of years there. Homebuyers we have a very significant homebuyer education requirement. We heard anecdotally quite a bit that there would be people outside those classes saying to people you have to come back tomorrow. I give you a loan so that the lack of regulation the lack of control over private the private greed. That went on there for a number of years is really what got us into this pickle and coupled with the economic downturn. I mean it's well I think this cause the economic downturn and what I would add to that is there were those of us who saw it coming and tried very much to sort of send up flares early on we did a press conference in Worcester in 2000 and seven

with one of the local CDC's in some of the city counselors saying that we thought that this was going to be like a tsunami hitting the city and that we could already see the swell in the distance. And the city because the city had been out front on the favorite properties issues and stuff like that was probably more aware but they didn't want to hear and no one wanted to hear that we knew this was coming so we knew because of the greed thing that Judy was just referring to which is that if you knew where those investment monies had come from and how they were being used to swell all of the subprime mortgages you could tell that once the subprime mortgages failed which were written in a way that you could predict would fail the way that the mortgage companies had designed them. We knew investments were going to be hurt all across the world and it was going to bring down the world economy. All right much more to come as part of our where we live series we're talking about how the foreclosure crisis is affecting wester. We're opening up the lines if you live in west and we want to hear from you. How is the crisis affecting you and where you live. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1

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most Indian rice to leave the country. The next day prices in Bangkok go up $75 a ton is about sharing stories. First reach California. These did indeed become about the hippest best dressed migrant workers of that year and very likely for many years is about you. Be a part of what's now called 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 give online at WGBH right. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in as part of our where we live series we're spending today in Worcester focusing on how it's been affected by the foreclosure crisis. I'm joined by Grace Ross co-founder of the Worcester anti foreclosure team. Judy Jacobson is with us. She's the deputy director of the

Massachusetts Housing Partnership. We're also joined by Jacqueline Bush on Jackson chief of staff for economic development for WISTER. We've opened up the lines if you leave and what if you live in Western not leave if you live in was it or don't we want to hear from you. Tell us how the foreclosure crisis is affecting you and your neighborhood. 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine seventy eight 7 7 3 0 1 eighty nine seventy. And as always you can write to our Facebook page or send us a tweet. Jacqueline to you is reading just a lot of information about the foreclosure crisis in the area and one of the things that a number of people focused on was who is buying foreclosed properties and the expression high absorption rate came up and you said that has a high absorption rate can you explain what that is. Sure. Properties that come onto the market unless they have experienced really considerable neglect tend to be eaten up pretty quickly

so that they don't linger on the market for for very long and they're purchased by out-of-state investors so we're seeing a lot of out-of-state investor owners. And you know we don't encourage that for for lots of reasons but primarily because it doesn't help to stabilize neighborhoods so you know when properties are purchased by folks who have never seen the property that they own you know they tend to not be well maintained. You know tendencies aren't stable there tends to be a lot of turnover and there is considerable decline in neighborhoods as a result of that. So I have to ask the question I often ask here is some money better than no money in those scenarios when you're dealing with whole streets of abandoned property. Yeah I would argue that that's not completely clear. There was a great Grace Ross Yeah there was a great study done in the Midwest. And what they looked at they were trying to understand what was going on so they looked at a zillion different variables but one of the things that they

showed which was not their intent is that what stabilizes a neighborhood is not it turns out. Ownership is not the most important thing in terms of a family's commitment to upkeep into the neighborhood and integration into the neighborhoods activities its length of stay that matters more. And we've been trying to push for it. The state wide organization got a law passed so that while the banks own the property former tenants have to be allowed to stay and rent. We've been trying to get the same thing for homeowners to be allowed to stay and rent because even an investor who purchases who cares about the community does not empty out the property if they're going to be renting anyway. And there someone in the property us a track record of paying and being a responsible tenant they may well keep them. So we really want to see policies by the banks while they purchase and own these properties where they don't empty them out. It's not a turnover. It's not a turnover. A lot of the folks who got into loans that were

unsustainable. Do you have enough money to pay rent. They were paying rent before they own to. And we really want to see that kind of stabilization of our neighborhoods so that whether people might lose ownership or not we want them to keep possession. And in terms of Worcester I mean we've had a supposed growth in population I'm not sure whether it wasn't just that we got better accounting who was there but we want that to be a long term commitment to the community by the people who live there and to the folks who purchased the properties we need them to be seeing that as part of their commitment. And we know in terms of investments that that doesn't matter. That's right I mean well but they do better in terms of their long term cash flow if they will stabilize our neighborhoods. We've got lots of callers so let me go to Jane from was. Go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven you know Ali it's great you're the name when you're out there on your show I live every day of all with a newborn. Thank you I want David my husband I really like you we

looked for years have been with her and we're very committed to the area and we don't think the houses were overpriced that we finally got something this summer as a short sale so I'm fortunate that we know the owners. Son aspires to be had and now it can have a lot less and I want to wind again and but we're happy. I don't think I have. And you're there for that for that duration as Grace Ross would say right. OK thank you very much for the call. Warren from Lester Go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show eighty nine point seven. WARREN. I'm here. Okay go ahead. I just want to echo the sentiments of the last caller it's really great to hear some conversation about Worcester. I'm a pastor of a local church and a couple of things I've noticed since the foreclosure crisis has hit is to first of all the number of families who are seeking

assistance from any place possible has really spiked. And we get a lot of calls that we just simply can't respond to because the you know foreclosure crisis in the economy has hit us as well. But the other thing that I think is just heartbreaking to see me for me to see is that folks who are tenants and have to are doing all the right things paying their bills the foreclosure crisis has hit them when landlords defaulted on things and so families and had to leave on incredibly short notice and it's becoming more and more difficult for them to make a transition into housing not because they're not keep it. Their record goes. They have all the foreclosures on the part of their landlord. You know it's just it's hard to see people who are suffering through no fault of their own. Thank you thank you so much for the call Warren and I'm going to Grace Ross is dying to jump in and yeah you Lauren.

Thanks so much for your work in the community. Two things that it's really important for people to know number one is if you're a tenant in a property that gets foreclosed you do not have to leave. If the banks make people leave it is illegal they violated state law and it's critically important Warren when you talk to folks that they be told they were a tenant they cannot be made to leave if they purchase was if the property was repurchased by an individual investor they still have several months before they have to leave. So that's one thing the other thing is please tell your folks the wistaria the foreclosure team is available to help. We meet the first and third Wednesday of every month at 5:30 at the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center and warn if you're seeing a lot of folks in your congregation dealing with this in a bunch of different ways we will come to a workshop for your congregation. Oh great. I appreciate it great. Thanks very much. Thank you so much for the call. Mark from wester Go ahead please. Good afternoon everybody. Hi I have two cars. Man I am a property owner of multi family properties and I have been both

a beneficiary of the foreclosure crisis in some respects and also I have been impacted by it. My comment is this what we've seen a lot since 2000 7 when the market peaked in Wester at an realistically high peak I might add for building values or building sales values vs. overall income. What we've seen is that we've seen a lot of properties come on the market and the banks haven't been willing to deal with anybody other than a cash buyer just to unload them. And what this has done is it has created in certain neighborhoods large pockets of absentee landlord run buildings where the tenant screening is not good. And I happen to work one of my building in one of these neighborhoods and what we end up with is a fair amount of crime because the other landlords were absentees typically from out of. The city don't really believe that kind of thing don't really believe the you know the building

itself. And as a result I think that brings down the neighborhood in a very very serious way. What we've tried to do in my particular neighborhood which is Bill Hill is we've tried to work proactively with other property owners particularly CDC that have come in and purchased properties around us and we've basically worked very hard to keep the bad guys out and do some pretty intense kind of screening and make sure that the tenants are doing the right thing and and keeping up their end of the bargain. So that's my comment what we've seen is we've we've seen investors come in and and really you know scoop up a building which is shut out property owners or potential probably don't have would have lived in them. And as a result we've seen some We've seen some neighborhood decline as a result of that. Thank you very much Mark for your comments. Jacqueline that's just what you were speaking to exactly that goes to the high absorption rate and home buyers if they

are. Qualified and able to get through the tougher lending standards that banks have put in place now typically cannot compete in the open market with cash buyers. So banks are accepting cash offers even lower cash offers before they are taking financed buyers. So what do you do. Judi or whichever one of you would like to answer this. If you're trying to maintain the community both from the advantage of this property owner just said listen I you know I got property but I want people are going to be there and stay there. And you're trying to compete with banks who are only interested in the bottom line in some cases as you said Jacqueline the very low bottom line in the moment and you're trying to maintain a community like wester. We have to have a whole number of tools and I know Jack you know Jacobson and the city of Worcester have been really terrific at trying to bring together an entire toolbox because there's no magic bullet. One effort that we've worked on with the city is a receivership effort. And through that program and we've

provided over $100000 of funding to Wester and to a nonprofit west of the West a community housing Resource Center which has focused on problem properties and begun court proceedings to have a receiver appointed to receive the rents if and to apply them properly to the property. If that's not happening because inevitably we're only going to be able to acquire a limited number of properties through non-profits are responsible buyers and then there's a whole bunch more that all kinds of people are going to pick up some well-intentioned and some not. And so the using effective code enforcement and receivership as we've done is a way to try to address the negatives in the neighborhood. And it's been very effective in Worcester in fact. There's over 100 buildings that have been a part of this program three hundred forty five housing units and we've stabilized. Sixty six buildings today over the last two three years that this program spread operating two hundred fifty two housing units a very effective tool.

You have the source era ship program was critical I think particularly early on was there was way out in front with that. But I think we have a more fundamental problem here which is that the banks are not behaving even fiscally responsible for themselves. And so that's created this situation where yeah they're jumping on the cash because they get that quick and easy because they don't want to take responsibility for the properties that they are now taking back in many cases. And I really think this is a much larger political and economic problem and we really can't afford for our cities to become all absentee landlord cities it's the impact it's horrendous. And we work with some local realtors who I think Mark described the problem really well but who had this terrible problem they find a family that's perfectly positioned for a home. Puts in an offer that's perfectly good and then finds that because they are financed instead of having this huge amount of cash. It's like another wave of that same investment money kicking around for folks who want to make a cheap you know a fast buck cheap and not take responsibility and

I think we have a moral issue here around home ownership or being able to rent whatever it is housing is a human right and we have to somehow say to the banks that you're going to take a loss but what's the real problem is you're taking a loss you're creating a loss for our whole community and for local banks are really taking a beating in terms of their portfolios because they can't just jump to another state or another country. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley. As part of our where we live series we're spending today in Wester focusing on how it's been affected by the foreclosure crisis. I'm joined by Grace Ross co-founder of the Worcester anti foreclosure team. Judy Jacobson deputy director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and Jacqueline Jackson chief of staff for economic development for was ster. I would like each of you to address the ongoing theme of our where we live series which is about the American dream.

And if you could step away from the statistics for just a second and speak to what does it mean when what grace is said about turning cities into investment kinds of just buildings with you know people collecting rents and mortgages and in a way from far away what does it mean to a community to have to deal with the level of foreclosure you've had and trying to really maintain it's coming back by keeping a hold of that community that is so valuable. Well it certainly it impacts everybody who lives and works and plays in the community that is affected so all members of the West a community are are impacted when friends neighbors and relatives can afford to to live there or can't afford to live near you anymore and you no longer commutes to work as a result because you have to move outside of the city. There's any there's any number of challenges that come from a housing crisis. Also

important to remember that you know we look to encourage responsible ownership and when best tears are buying the fact that there are investors it is not the challenge the fact that they're irresponsible investors is the challenge so you know we really need to encourage folks to kind of. Idealistically look at homeownership not only as an American dream but as a as a community and look to build a sense of community so that folks who who do their own indoor rent in a community become part of the the seat of that fabric of that neighborhood and and feel invested and feel like they're connected to a place that you know cares about them and cares about their success. That's Jacqueline Bush on Jackson. Judy Jacobson speak to that if you would. Well you know we heard from some of your callers today all who want to invest

in the community make the community a better place. There's lots of good people who you know we keep hearing about all the bad stuff but there are a lot a lot of good people we have to find ways to encourage and support the good stuff. Our homeownership program as I discussed a little bit before. We've been helping people become low income people low income families become successful homeowners for 20 years now and we've got to keep get the banks to lend. We've got to keep them involved in these kind of programs we've got to have support for housing counseling we need. We need to support the good stuff. We can't just give up and let all of the good stuff go away. I think that's the that's the theme I'd like to strike a little twist on the question to you Grace Ross when you look at the face of people about to be evicted about to be foreclosed How do you how do you speak to them about trying to maintain that American dream or watching my face when you ask the question right. I I I really I've done work for many many years around housing

issues long before the foreclosure crisis other kinds of housing issues. And I have to say it haunts me. I am haunted by the experience of people. Who will say. I just wanted to own a home and be responsible and raise my kids. And there's an image that these mortgages went to folks who purchased a home you know for first time and have only been there for a short time. But the worst mortgages for a long time were going to folks who were doing refinances so we often are dealing with someone who's had a house for 20 years raise their kids there and now found themselves in a bad mortgage or who you know since the property values crashed have have ended up underwater. And it's absolutely I cannot describe the heartbreak. It's because these are people who invested and often they put you know tens of thousands of dollars just in the last few years into the house renovating and stuff they have no assets left and they're going to have bad credit and have a hard time even renting in a market that requires credit

checks. And you know there's a recent study that came out called our foreclosures making us sick. And they show that in the highest. Foreclosure rates zip codes that suicides have multiplied by five times. Heart attacks are up measurably I can't remember what the statistic is but it's a huge increase. And these are the sort of physical expressions of that emotional experience of people finding the thing that's supposed to be your nest egg that you're supposed to be able to trust which is you purchased a home you're going to have a roof over your head for you know decades to come. Taken away from them. And I don't think we've begun to scratch the surface of what it means that we went from a society that tried at least to see housing as an investment as a commitment by a family to a neighborhood to a community to housing as an investment for a fast buck. And I don't think with the moral social emotional impacts of that we're still I think early in

what that's really going to feel like for us to give up the term that you just used is that people give up we give up on a sense of their right to have a life that you know they can be proud of living. And that's probably our biggest fight is to teach people that this is in you individually all you have to do is look at the systemic impacts and it's very obvious that these were mortgages the subprime mortgages were created for a fast buck and what they did was not only were they bad for the people who got them. That's what created that housing bubble that ramped prices far beyond historical norms and that we're now seeing far beyond historical norms in the drop in property value. If folks don't know we've lost more in property value than they did in the Great Depression and our values are still going down. So we have I think really you know I thought the Great Depression was about an economic crisis it was about a moral crisis there's plenty of money where the third richest state in the United States there's plenty of money in our state. It is not being used for productive uses for the long time value of our communities of each other of our neighborhoods. And we

can get there and that's the other thing I want to say is wisteria new foreclosure team works together as a group both in the courts and in the streets to support people to fight to let them stay in their homes or return to their homes if the foreclosure was illegal. And we know we can get back to a stable neighborhood where the mortgages are written by local banks who are also stuck in the local economy if the local economy goes badly they go badly so they have a real commitment and we can get there. But we have to decide that this is something we're willing to take on at a larger level and that our neighbors are not left on their own. All right thank you very much. All of you for discussing a very important issue in our state and offering a bit of hope here. Thank you. Thank you for having me where I've been talking about the foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts and how it's affecting wester I've been joined by Grace Ross. She's one of the co-founders of the Worcester anti foreclosure team. She's also the coordinator for the Massachusetts alliance against predatory lending. Judy Jacobson the deputy director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and

Jacqueline Bush on Jackson. Chief of Staff for economic development for Worcester. Thank you all. Up next we continue the conversation with a look at Worcester as a start up pup maybe an answer to the foreclosure crisis we'll be back after this break. Stay tuned to WGBH. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And UMass Memorial Medical Center and their Euro gynecology team specializing in surgical and nonsurgical solutions for urinary incontinence and other pelvic floor disorders. White papers online at UMass Memorial dot org slash for women. And the 15th annual Boston International fine art show galleries from London Madrid and across the United States offering more than 3000 original works of art. This weekend only November 17th through the 20th Fine Art Boston dot com. And Greater Boston with contributing reports

to WGBH is where we live series The State of the American dream in Massachusetts cities and towns on radio online and tonight at 7:00 on WGBH to. Your eyes the world brings you more the news. You have your own honey. Each day we test your knowledge of places and people with the world geo quiz. This is one of the crocodiles we have. We provide clues. I think it has a bit of an onion smell. You guess the mystery location. Play along by texting in your answer text the word Geo Quiz to 6 9 8 6 6 message and data rates may apply. You'll hear the answer on the next edition of the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Local national and international. The news you hear on eighty nine point seven comes to you because of individual support. And this program is coming to you fundraiser free thanks to WGBH who's sustaining members sustainers break their gifts down to monthly installments that automatically renew it's easy it's efficient and it means less fundraising. But that sounds good to you. Call 8 8 8 8 9

7 9 4 2 4 4 sign on as a sustainer at WGBH dot org. As the American dream has run its course in Massachusetts. I'm Bob C.. Join me this week when we uncover new research about unexpected obstacles to achieving the American dream. In the places where we live all this week year old baby 9.7 WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley. All week on WGBH we are revisiting our where we live series with a focus on the state of the American dream. We're wrapping up today's conversation with a look at Worcester as an ideal destination for startups. I'm joined by Kevin O'Sullivan CEO of mass biomedical initiatives. Kevin thank you for joining us today. Nice to have a yeah on the show Kelly. Great. OK so let's talk about what mass biomedical initiatives is all about your are incubators for possible

businesses you grow small businesses talk talk to us about that. Yeah. MBI the best biomedical initiative is really what I would call an economic development engine for small entrepreneurial life science start ups we provide laboratory space. Now the short term affordable base is for people with innovative ideas to kind of grow their companies and then move on out on their own here in this corrupt state and obviously not only in helping foreign companies but in turn you know creating new jobs and expanding on the tax base. Well you for a made it known that Worcester is the place where for these kinds of companies for these kinds of initiatives why was it. Well because there's a burgeoning bio medical Carter I've kind of coined the phrase between Boston Wister and everywhere in between I think Western Cambridge and Boston are the two anchors and on the wrister side we've got a medical school a teaching hospital in UMass We've got many many colleges and universities about 30000 students a vet the only Veterinary School in New England and a million square foot Biotechnology Research Park which we developed

25 years ago and the biggest and nicest prizes were 40 miles from the epicenter of the world. Kendall Square and Harvard and MIT and again lots of things are moving out westward for lots of different reasons quite a life cost. But to be where we are positioned in the middle the state 90 percent of our workforce comes from all over the state so it's very mobile and it puts us in a good position to to really be that incubator start up capital and we're not going to compete with Cambridge and we should. We're complementing them. And most of our spinoff companies are all over the state at this point and that's what we're trying to achieve. Well talk to us about some of the companies you know you give them a year of support to try to get off the ground and hone what they are trying to do. So describe a couple. The companies Well let me give an example. There's a company that did just leftists. They basically were two engineers that had a dental medical device related it was a computerized laser that cut teeth and they needed a place to

build a prototype they needed to be legitimate they had to get out of their kitchen or their you know their basement and they came to us it took a small laser lab that had the power and the benches in the kind of Quitman they needed. They spent a year here building the prototype and Interestingly enough during that whole process they brought in lots of different dentists to to solidify give them advice sign onto what they were doing. Since then they've reason million dollars there on their own now in Natick and the prototype is done and my sense is they're going to quit with this machine which will be in many dental offices around so this is an example of someone who doesn't need a five year lease they want to small little lab they can work out of spend a year or so and then blossom out of there. Also have companies that work in diabetes as an example of a wrecked model company that basically works with lots of different pharmaceutical companies on testing and looking efficacy for drugs in the whole issue of diabetes. And on and on and on. You know I could go over the gamut it's all medical device

biotechnology and informatics related which is data management. You want to. For the Telegram and Gazette in which you argued you and your co-author Dr Abraham had that because you're in this biomedical quarter as you said but also there's a synergy you said between the needs of the biomedical industry and the health care and medical story and the health care industry and the medical strengths that central Massachusetts has to offer that this really can I'm using that this was a headline transform the economy. Do you believe that. Well I don't just believe and I know we're doing it I mean you know massive you know Massachusetts in and wish her a part of this new technology of bio technology medical device health care related industries. Webster was a was a large manufacturing sector you know many many years ago and you know through the leadership and foresight of not only the political leadership but the business leadership the scientific really just leadership the academic leadership here 25 years ago said we've got to

juice up the manufacturing sector is slipping away and so we invite on this you know a biotechnology sector and everyone was a bit cynical at the time but for all the reasons they gave you earlier we have a medical school. WPI. You know that's cool when you're close to Boston that we succeeded and I clearly have created a lot of jobs and it's our niche and it's the synergy that we were very lucky timing is everything but we had some some real real good leaders and you know which is a second tier city and I don't mean as a negative but we got to work hard at it you know in Cambridge and Boston it just happened you know but. And I think the hard work has paid off and you know my motto is you know one lab. You know one for one building at a time and I mean the evidence is very clear out here in terms of what we've been doing. Now you speak very enthusiastically about the work of the companies and what's going on in your incubation labs there. One of the facts is interesting to me is that 90 percent of those of the people were. Again these companies live outside of what store and if the goal is to try to begin to transform the economy

there. Don't you need those people to be living in Wester. Well I think commuter rail and the doubling of the commuter rail and people going in and out of Boston coming out this way is certainly going to help that but no I don't get hung up about that because I think the economic firepower that all of these people bring to the city and believe it or not you know the usual company like blue sky biotech that's in protein synthesis. They lived in the Boston area and now live just outside of in Sturbridge in Rutland So they're in the suburban area. And again I think we've got to get away from you know three hundred fifty one city and town fiefdoms in Massachusetts just about Massachusetts as a state competing on a global stage and so I I very name is Massachusetts and I don't get hung up about you know Western or Boston or Springfield I think it's all of us that need to be kind of focused and I think that's where we're at at this point with with really good collaboration and also keep in mind that you know what that product is innovation and brains and you know obviously we've got lots of students that participate get involved in our companies but again bring travel

and they're mobile and that's the movement of people and goods and so I I see nothing but positive and more and more housing you know in terms of apartments and and condos are available so you know I might the mistake that will be OK. I am all about what you said in terms of you know Brian's traveling and that's that's part of our of what Massachusetts has to offer in terms of you know the intellectual property that has made it so well-known. And certainly there's as you have described more of that in the area that you are now located but I asked the question because I just finished a very deep conversation about foreclosure crisis in Central Massachusetts and the danger of investors coming buying up property who are outside of the community with not much interest in building up what is home to lots of people to making a community. And so wouldn't it be great to have the kind of brainpower the folks that you're talking about the companies that come to take advantage of the assets in that community also live there. As a part of transforming the economy.

Oh I think you know I don't disagree I think did I mention this whole commuter rail line it's going to double between Boston and Western It's going to get up to I believe twenty four runs in and out. That will greatly enhance I think our ability to attract people out here. I think I'm finding a lot of young couples who are raising their families or coming out here. I used to be chairman for 10 years of the Licensing Commission here in the city and I will tell you the amount of activity in regards to licenses for restaurants and bars and you know things to do really transforms Shrewsbury street Harding street Green Street water stream eries of the community that needed and needed a boost and in turn in that area of Union Station where the trains are going back and forth there were several housing developments in condo developments that are being occupied and I think that's that's a plus but I don't want to gloss over the fact that you know you know there's a problem of the housing crisis but you know let's pick a number all over the all of the country and I

think Massachusetts is better positioned than a lot of the California is in the Floridas of the Arizona so we're going to address it and keep plugging along. I noted in a column by Peter Cohen and. He wrote that he's in he's interested in what in what you're doing in your project and you're pushing Worcester as this new place for startups and innovation. But he says it's going to take a string of investment successful stories to really get the kind of you know numbers that you need to get from to get to drop people to the area. You know sort of like Silicon Valley you know where people just know well you know what that's an area where we need to go and will be supported in our start up efforts. Do you agree with that question. Yeah no I do you know but if you look at our little organization just to give you some statistics and we have a 72 percent success rate we've created over 400 jobs in the last decade as documented here in Massachusetts. So in other words these companies that are coming in you know that they are focused.

They're thrifty they're raising money on their own and they're successful so you know I think you know the numbers will come. Also keep in mind I mentioned a quarter if you look at coming westward from Lexington to wall stamp to Westborough to Hopkinton shoes bring us pro-Western. How many is there I mean the growth is there the growth is here in Worcester. I mean you just need only come into the city and see what's going on to do Master downtown or the biotech park. There's a lot of growth going. Your employment building is going up downtown to meet the mass College of Pharmacy is growing. I don't see that in any other community with the exception of Worcester So I'm optimistic that the signs are there. Peter is correct but I think we're following that game plan and again we've got the evidence to show it. Why do you care with seconds to go. Just because you got was deprived. Well no I mean you know I operate a business here you know work in a way you know I do live here in the city I'm not a native of Worcester but let me tell you you know anybody that would tell

you and I mean that across the state that Wister has not turned a corner in a positive way over the last decade has not been is at their head in the sand. I mean it's it's just amazing what I've seen here and it is contagious but what I like about living here is it's close to New York is close to Boston it's close to the Cape Horn Island shores close to Fremont is close to three airports and quality life is good my kid's been educated the public schools and you know I've got no complaints so hey listen you got to believe in the community are going to be successful and so far we've been successful. That's Kevin O'Sullivan cheerleader. OK we've been talking about what's the next frontier for start ups and I've been speaking with Kevin O Sella Sullivan CEO of mass biomedical initiatives thank you so much. Thank you Alex. As part of our where we live series we want to know if the American dream is alive and well in your town. Log on to our website to share your story at WGBH dot org slash news. Today Show was engineered by Jane Pitt produced by Chelsea Mertz will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka. We are a production of

WGBH Boston Public Radio.