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South Jamaica is community that has taken significant strides against its troubled history. The community is a strong one. Its residents take pride in where they live and work hard to improve their community. This is seen in its recent history, where the residents of South Jamaica fought long and hard to become the home of the fiftieth branch of the Queens Borough Public Library[1]. Library service in the area began in the form of a bookmobile which made five weekly stops, bringing a variety of materials to eager residents. While making do with the bookmobile service, community leaders battled for almost twenty years for a neighborhood library to service residents who had to travel by bus or car to reach the main branch, in Jamaica, or the Queens Village Branch. Finally, in October 1961, the South Jamaica Branch opened for business at 110-36 New York Boulevard, in a building owned by Bethel Gospel Tabernacle. As the South Jamaica community continued to grow and demands on library resources increased dramatically the branch clearly needed a new home. On December 20th, 1999, after months of preparation the branch opened for business in its spanking new, environmentally controlled building at 108-41 Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, two blocks from its previous location.
Parents and community leaders in South Jamaica have also been fighting for a new elementary school for more than two decades. In 2008, their efforts paid off with the construction of P.S./I.S. 48[2]. These two examples reflect positively on the community and provide reason to believe the community will only continue to improve.
One of the main issues facing South Jamaica today is high foreclosure rates. In October 2007, the census tract in the city with the most foreclosure filings was in South Jamaica, where 39 of the roughly 140 properties on one four-block stretch had been in various stages of foreclosure since 2004[3]. High foreclosure rates have led to decreasing property values. Small businesses are in turn struggling and crime has increased. Squatting is becoming a growing problem. Residents of South Jamaica complain that empty homes have encouraged people from other neighborhoods to loiter on the street, drinking beer and making noise at all hours[4]. According to Marilyn Cush, turnover in ownership of single-family houses has been common in the 18 years since she and her husband moved to 152nd St[5]. Thus the issue isn’t a new one yet a growing problem. The core of the foreclosure epidemic, affecting South Jamaica as well as neighborhoods in other cities around the country, is subprime lending. Subprime loans represent only 15% of all mortgages but more than half of all foreclosures[6]. In 2005, 69 percent of the homes purchased in Tract 288, the area located around Baisley Pond in South Jamaica, were bought with subprime mortgages[7]. According to the census tract, No. 288 had 226 foreclosure filings on one- to four-family homes from 2003-2008. Subprime lending made it easy for people with modest incomes (in 1999 the median household income in Tract 288 was $44,348) and poor credit histories to buy homes.
Predatory lenders often offer low teaser interest rates that escalate rapidly after two years and often require no verification of a borrower's income. Furthermore in New York City, the practice is especially prevalent in minority communities like South Jamaica. New York Senator Chuck Schumer claims subprime lenders routinely targeted many black and Hispanic homebuyers with otherwise good credit histories in a form of "reverse-redlining", in which borrowers are steered into high-interest loans even though they were eligible for conventional prime rate loans[8]. The crisis is further aided by a new group of real estate predators that offer to counsel homeowners in default, or "help" them refinance their homes[9]. These lenders often target senior citizen homeowners, who in many cases are on fixed incomes. They try to convince them to take home equity loans and often times the monthly payment on that loan is higher than the person's income.
To its credit, New York City is responding to the foreclosure dilemma. On Wednesday January 14th 2009, Mayor Bloomberg announced one of the most aggressive steps city officials have taken in years to prevent vacant foreclosed properties from becoming a blight on neighborhoods[10]. New York City will spend $24 million in federal financing to rehabilitate and resell 115 foreclosed homes. This program, called the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, will aid South Jamaica and 12 other neighborhoods that the city has identified as most in need of assistance. While the Neighborhood Stabilization Program provides a solution for what to do with the foreclosed homes it fails to address the underlying issue, the practice of predatory lending that lands owners into agreements they cant fulfill. Thus I first propose in making the attorney general and DA’s office aware of the situation. As City Councilman Leroy Comrie puts it “a lot of these activities are illegal. We have a high rate of senior citizens and immigrants here, and these lenders are preying on the elderly with reverse mortgages that are really subprime loans”[11]. Matthew Lee, of fairhousing.com, offers another strategy that could prove to be more fruitful than filing lawsuits and complaints. He proposes grassroots community and consumers groups document and raise subprime lending issues to bank regulatory agencies on bank mergers involving banks with subprime affiliates[12]. In the late 1990’s, many of the major banks like Citigroup have purchased subprime lenders. Wall Street investment banks have created a market for securities based on the loan. Subprime lenders package their high interest rate loans as mortgage-backed securities, which in turn funnel more money back to the lenders.
While a crack down on predator lenders may lead to a decrease in the practice, lenders will always find a way around laws and regulations. Thus another solution could be to use some of the $54 million given to New York State, by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to finance programs similar to the Neighborhood Stabilization Program towards prevention counseling, and financial training programs that educate borrowers on abusive lending practices and legal advice. The money should be concentrated in South Jamaica and 12 other neighborhoods that are receiving assistance from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. As Yvonne Reddick, district manager of Community Board 12 in Southeast Queens, states "A lot of first-time home buyers didn't know what to look for, and these brokers even supply them with lawyers who don't defend the buyer's interest". New York State as well as agencies like HUD should work directly with community groups to educate the public. As stated by Emily Rosenbaum and Samantha Friedman in The Housing Divide, by working with community-based organizations, agencies can better educate the public about their rights as well as the services available to it in the respective language of the immigrant group and in a setting that is most comfortable to the members of the group. In the black community, like South Jamaica, churches played a vital role in the civil rights movement and continue today to have a socially progressive agenda[13]. In addition, religious organizations are a central part of many immigrant communities. Thus churches can be an ideal starting point on where to concentrate these workshops.
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