Foreclosure News

This website is available to make Medina County Residents aware of the steps that can be taken to avoid foreclosure. It will also be a resource to provide general foreclosure information.

Commissioners Corner

By; Pat Geissman

Medina County Commissioner

While traveling to Hinckley in July, I noticed several homes that were vacant and overgrown with weeds. I knew there was a great possibility these homes had gone into foreclosure and neither the owner nor the bank holding the mortgage was tending the property. I knew also this had a negative affect on the surrounding homes in lowering property values.

    Upon checking records I found that we had 856 foreclosures in Medina County in 2007 and that number was skyrocketing higher for 2008. We will have more than 1,000 foreclosures filed this year. That's not just numbers, it is families in crisis.

    I contacted local bankers, Real Estate Brokers, members of the county's Housing Network, and others that were concerned about the high rate of foreclosures in Medina County and were interested in doing whatever could be done to keep these families in their homes. At our first meeting we determined families were facing foreclosures because of loss of jobs, illness, divorce and other life changing events. From this key group of people, the Medina County Foreclosure Prevention Task Force was created, as we believed there were ways to help these families in crisis.

    We decided to dig our heels in and go to work! An analysis of the available foreclosure information at the regional, state or national level did not provide Medina County residents with many choices to help them in their time of need. Collectively the group began the task of identifying as many opportunities for local assistance as possible and to make those sources more readily available to local residents who wish to utilize those agencies, businesses or organizations in a convenient, confidential and informative format.

    To date, we have established a local phone number,
330-764-4663 (330-764-HOME) housed at United Way with local calls answered by Neighborhood Housing Services of Cleveland using their counselors until we have a local counselor hired for Medina County. Neighborhood Housing Services has been federally funded to help families faced with foreclosure in Northeast Ohio, and will fund Medina County services. In addition the Task force is developing a Foreclosure Prevention website. The Task Force is planning a public awareness campaign that will encourage property owners who are faced with foreclosure to seek help as soon as possible. The committee's goal is to have the program in operation by the first week of December. Look for future news releases and other announcements pertaining to the topic of foreclosure prevention and intervention as the Medina County Foreclosure Prevention Task Force continues its important work on behalf of local property owners in crisis.