• Lisa Simpson
• Dec 9,2009
• In: Foreclosure

Foreclosed Landlord Poses Problems for Tenant

It is common across the country – foreclosed landlords are posing problems for tenants. One of the victims is Alice Garvin who has come face to face with foreclosure twice. Four years she returned home to read a notice on her door in East New York, Brooklyn. She had been residing then for two years in an apartment building with her sons and grandchildren.

In the second brush it was foreclosure that saved Garvin. This septuagenarian lived in an apartment in Crown Heights in a locality riddled with violence. She was eager to exit from the place that was not only unsafe but sans any maintenance but was the happy haven for all sorts of insects. These bugs would just drop down from the ceiling said Audrey Henry of East New York Family Center run by Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service,  who had been handling Garvin’s case. It is one out of 7 agencies funded by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

Garvin thought it to be good luck that she was still alive. Although originally from South Carolina, she had been living in New York for about 50 years.

In both instances of her brush with foreclosure she herself had nothing to do with it. She had always been a tenant and never a house owner. Although Garvin was relieved to exit from an unsafe locality she hardly had the funds to shift. To do so she required $6,600 from The New York Times Sub-prime Neediest Cases Fund. It is operated by Children’s Aid Society. It enabled her to shift with her 2 sons, 2 grandchildren, great-nephew and great-grandson to residence having 4 bedrooms in Bushwick last February.

The family is pulling along on a motley collection from welfare – social security, pension, disability cheques and food stamps together with trips to food pantry. For a family of seven the total collection amounts to $2,800. Currently $1,650 has to be paid towards rent but when the lease expires it would be increased. She is however waiting at the tail end of a lengthy waiting list for housing subsidy (section 8). Garvin bemoans that if the rent is increased she would have to shift again as it would be beyond her means.

Foreclosures are bad for everybody but it is especially so for Garvin who has retired. This is the latest blow in a life filled with troubles and travails.