BANKERS IN Chicago are angry with--of all people--Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
Dart announced October 8 that his office would no longer forcibly remove residents from foreclosed properties, essentially imposing a moratorium on any mortgage-related evictions in the third-largest city in the U.S. and a surrounding county, with a total population of 5.3 million people.
Foreclosures are expected to reach a record high of 43,000 in Cook County this year, and the sheriff's department was expected to conduct 4,500 foreclosure-related evictions. Two thousand people are evicted from their homes every month in Cook County--as many as 500 as a result of a foreclosure.
The Cook County moratorium applies to foreclosed homes, condominiums and apartment buildings. Renters will still be evicted for reasons not related to foreclosures. Still, this is the first moratorium on such evictions in a major urban area--at least in living memory.
Dart cited the cases of renters unjustly thrown out of their apartments as a result of the mortgage crisis--at least a third of such foreclosure evictions affect renters, he said. "These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care who's in the building," Dart said.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/10/chicago-sheriff-stops-eviction