SUBPRIME EMBARRASSMENT: Jamaica-Rochdale Village Tops All of Queens with 450 Foreclosure Filings

The media has been talking about foreclosures and the state of the current housing market for the past week. Among the many, the Metro New York paper reported this morning on how officials are starting to step up the crackdown on predatory lenders. State Sen. Jeff Klein also revealed stats on the hardest hit neighborhoods in NYC. Sad to report that Jamaica/Rochdale Village (predominately black neighborhoods) filed for the most foreclosures for the borough of Queens.

“Unfortunately, instead of working with endangered homeowners,” (Sen. Charles) Schumer said, “unscrupulous lenders are going out of their way to push high risk loans and preventing mortgage holders from refinancing.”

“Especially in the black and Hispanic community, we’re trying to get the so-called American Dream,” said State Sen. Ruben Diaz of the Bronx. “And in our pursuit, we are being taken and now we are living this nightmare.”

To add, here are two heartbreaking foreclosure stories. Now, we may not know the whole story of Michele McIntosh from Far Rockaway and Helen Rice-Lyles of Staten Island, but after analyzing their situation, they were foreclosure cases waiting to happen. Someone lied to them. And they lied to themselves.