A bipartisan advocacy agency in Washington DC, First Focus deals with family welfare. This agency has recently published a report which reveals that nearly 2.3 million US children have been affected due to this prolonged 5 year foreclosure crisis. Owing to the foreclosure crisis, all these children have lost their homes. According to their report, there is one child in every 10 children who has been suffering or will suffer in future from post-foreclosure effects.
There is another group of nearly three million children who are living in homes which are standing on the verge of foreclosure as homeowners are either seriously delinquent or are struggling to repay their home loans. Apart from these 3 million kids, there are another three million who are living in rented houses after losing their own homes in foreclosure.
Julia Isaacs prepared the report after a thorough study while she was associated with the Brookings Institution. At present, she is a senior fellow at the Labor, Human Services and Population Center of Urban Institute. She said, “Children are the often invisible victims of the foreclosure crisis.”
She examined the data provided by the US Census Bureau and foreclosure records to calculate the approximate figure for the total number of foreclosure affected children. This is the 2nd report released by this agency dealing with the adverse impact of the foreclosure crisis on children, and this is also the first report by this agency where they have revealed an estimate of the total number of US children living in rented homes.
It is quite evident that the impact is more adverse in those regions which were the worst affected areas of foreclosure. In this context, Isaacs said that there is one child in every 5 children in Nevada who is either living in foreclosed homes or living in their own home, which is standing on the verge of foreclosure.
In California, 12% of the children are foreclosure affected whereas in Arizona, the rate is 14% followed by Florida, where the rate is 15%. North Dakota and Alaska report the lowest rate in US which is only 2%.
In the words of the President of First Focus, Bruce Lesley, the foreclosure crisis is not only affecting the children physically and mentally but is also affecting their educational career. On the basis of sixteen studies, Isaacs concluded that for every eviction process, students are giving poor results in their school exams, and sometimes remaining absent for almost a month.
She even warned that this number may also increase in the near future as her study only included foreclosure cases seen in the last 5 years starting from 2004.
Photo by Rolands.lakis.
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