Source: Housing Link 2008 foreclosure report

Foreclosures have hit Minnesota’s economy hard, leading to a debate among policymakers over how best to provide relief to the state’s families.

But a Minnesota Independent analysis of foreclosure data from across the state reveals that the crisis is worst where congressional representation is doing the least to address the issue.

Foreclosure rates were calculated using data from Housing Link, a non-partisan Minneapolis-based housing nonprofit, along with county sheriffs’ sale records and estimated numbers of households in 2007 from the state demographer’s office. Congressional district rates were determined using city- and township-level data where boundaries did not follow county lines. The calculations used are the same as those spelled out in the state statute for determining foreclosure rates.

The data show that the northern suburbs and exurbs of the Twin Cities have seen the bulk of the foreclosures in 2008, and the southern suburbs have experienced a high number as well.

While much of the crisis is centralized in an area covering two congressional districts, a search of the congressional record reveals that the representatives in those districts are dealing with the crisis very differently. Rep. Michele Bachmann has voted against all but one measure aimed at foreclosure relief, while Rep. Keith Ellison in the neighboring district has supported or introduced more than a dozen bills to address the issue.

Trouble in the Sixth

Just to the north of the Twin Cities, the 6th district, represented by Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, had the most foreclosures of any of Minnesota’s eight congressional districts, with an estimated 5,227 in 2008. Her district also had the highest rate of foreclosures as a percentage of households, at 1.80 percent, nearly that of the city of Minneapolis at 1.85 percent.

The situation was similar in 2007, when, according to a Housing Link study, Bachmann’s district had a higher foreclosure rate than the rest of Minnesota and the rest of the country.

But Bachmann’s record in Congress is not one of a representative whose district faces such a crisis. Bachmann hasn’t authored or sponsored any legislation to assist homeowners facing foreclosure, but she has co-sponsored 14 bills to restrict abortions and five to promote Christianity in government.

Bachmann voted against five key foreclosure relief bills, including the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, which would set standards for mortgages and reduce predatory lending, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, which would provide funds for buying and rehabilitating foreclosed properties in affected neighborhoods. She also opposed the Expanding American Homeownership Act, which allows more people to qualify for FHA-backed mortgages, and the Expand and Preserve Home Ownership Through Counseling Act, which aims to improve financial literacy. Bachmann additionally voted against the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, a law signed by President Bush that contained many provisions to assist struggling homeowners and also the only one of the bills to become law.

Before the first four of these measures reached the House floor, Bachmann opposed them in the House Financial Services Committee. She also voted against the FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeownership Rentention Act of 2008, which did not receive a floor vote. The bill would have provided mortgage refinancing assistance to struggling families and expanded FHA loan programs.

Bachmann further offered an amendment to block increased funding for HOPE for Homeowners, a Department of Housing and Urban Development program that helps families facing foreclosure to refinance their mortgages.

When Congress was debating strategies to assist families facing foreclosure, Bachmann called those homeowners “irresponsible.”

“Now, we can debate whether this is the right thing to do as it may seem that you’re rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules,” she said in Febraury. “When President Obama released his plan … to prevent home foreclosures, the point he wanted to get across to everyone watching was that money from folks who have been making their payments on time will not just be handed over to those folks who got in over their heads and bought a house they knew they couldn’t afford.”

Those homes that residents of the 6th district couldn’t afford had a median value of $239,000, according to the 2007 American Community Survey, just above the national median of $229,000. Prices have likely declined considerably since the 2007 survey.

Bachmann’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the foreclosure data or her voting record.

Different tactics in Minneapolis

While foreclosure rates are nearly as high in the neighboring 5th Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison has been working to address the crisis.

The 5th district, encompassing Minneapolis and its surrounding suburbs, has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the state, with an estimated 4,413 foreclosures in 2008 at a rate of 1.63 percent.

Ellison’s efforts to address the foreclosure crisis have been noticed on a national scale.

He authored a bill that gives renters 90 days notice when a housing unit goes into foreclosure and allow them to finish their lease.

“I think it’s in the best interest of the banks to keep people in these [housing] units,” Ellison told the Independent. “These empty buildings create nuisances for crime, they get vandalized. While they sit empty, people come in and steal copper piping and it creates a risk for fire.”

The New York Times editorial board hailed Ellison’s bill. “This legislation would be good for renting families, which have been unfairly penalized by this crisis,” wrote the Times. “It would also help to stabilize heavily foreclosed neighborhoods by keeping buildings occupied and alive in areas that might otherwise become ghost towns.”

In the last session, Ellison authored the Fairness for Homeowners Act, which would add new regulations to mortgage lenders such as verifying a borrower’s ability to pay and eliminating pre-payment penalties. Last Tuesday he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar reintroduced that bill.

“Throughout all this, we still haven’t passed anti-predatory lending legislation,”  Ellison said. “We need to get some actual regulation. The industry keeps saying that anti-predatory lending has dried up, but there is still a lot of it out there.”

Ellison said he’s introduced the bill every session, and others have offered it before he got to Congress, but still Congress fails to act on the bill.

Ellison is also a co-sponsor of 12 other bills aimed at providing relief to individuals and communities impacted by the foreclosure crisis. His voting record in Congress on housing is virtually the opposite of Bachmann’s.

Bachmann and Ellison both sit on the Financial Services Committee. Ellison voted for all five of the foreclosure-related committee bills that Bachmann voted against, and the same was true of the five floor votes on foreclosure legislation.

But the two did vote together on one House resolution that directs the government to protect “buyers from unscrupulous mortgage brokers and lenders.”

That resolution says that government should establish minimum standards for lenders, increase opportunities for homeowner counseling and strengthen lender evaluations of a borrower’s ability to repay a mortgage.

Bills were offered to address each of those needs identified by the resolution, but Bachmann voted against them.

Ellison says that Congress needs to do more for homeowners, and for the middle class in general, than it’s currently doing.

“How can we sit by and act like we don’t care? A home is a big deal,” he said. “The largest asset that people own is their home.”

The good news? The Twin Cities actually fell in the nationwide rankings for foreclosure filings during the third quarter. Out of 100 metro-area foreclosures, Minneapolis-St. Paul ranks 61st. During that period the Twin Cities saw nearly 5,000 foreclosure filings, or about 0.38 percent of total households went into foreclosure.

However September numbers spotlight a growing problem in Minnesota. Nationwide, foreclosure numbers increased by 21 percent compared to September of 2007, while Minnesota’s rise doubled that. As we reported earlier, Housing Link projects that foreclosures will continue to rise into 2010 in Minnesota.