Whose Neighborhoods Are Hit Hardest by the Foreclosure Crisis?

Congratulations to CHANGER, a North Star Fund grantee since 2006, for their prominent mention in the front page lead article in last Saturday's New York Times :

Antoinette Coffi, 45, saw an ad on the subway, a photo of a black couple gazing at a gleaming home. She walked into that company's office two years ago, and six weeks later she, her two children, her mother and cousin had a home in Queens. She ended up with not one but two mortgages, including a variable-rate loan that started at 11 percent.

Last year her work hours were cut and she fell behind. "The stress, oh my God," she said, her voice thick with the juicy vowels of her native West Africa.

With the help of Changer, an advocacy group, she has kept the house. But her neighbors may not be as lucky. "Everywhere, everyone talks about being put in the street," she said.

CHANGER works to stop abusive mortgage lending practices in low and moderate income communities in New York City. This same article reports that in New York City, 85% of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis have a majority of black and Latino homeowners. As the article points out, banks used to drew red lines on maps around black neighborhoods and refused to lend. More recently, banks began targeting those same neighborhoods with exploitative subprime mortgage lending practices.

Elsewhere on the Time's website, there's an informative interactive map showing the foreclosure rates in various communities in the New York metro region. In the city, the communities of Bushwick and Jamaica appear to be the most devastated. But the crisis is felt all across the region.

Where have you seen the effects of the mortgage crisis?