Community Response to the Foreclosure Crisis: Thoughts on Local Interventions

By Dan Immergluck, Visiting Scholar in Community Affairs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Associate Professor in City and Regional Planning at Georgia Insititute of Technology

This paper lays out a framework for how local entities respond to the foreclosure crisis, though mortgage lending and foreclosure proceedings are handled at the federal and state levels. It argues that in addition to organizing to advocate for reform to federal and state policy that begets subprime lending and encourages foreclosures, local actors are also taking direct action to prevent foreclosures, mitigate the negative impacts of foreclosures in their communities, and help spur recovery for individual homeowners and communities besieged by a spatial concentration of foreclosures.

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