Chicago Community Trust

We all know that vacant, abandoned homes hurt entire communities: they can make neighborhoods appear less desirable, be breeding ground for fires and other property deterioration, and be havens for violent crime. What’s less certain is what to do with the influx of vacant and abandoned homes that continues to be spurred by the foreclosure crisis. Clearly, there’s no quick fix, but policymakers, developers, community organizations, and others have plenty of ideas to turn vacant properties around—and at a scale large enough to make a difference.

In 2010, the Circuit Court of Cook County created the Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program to assist homeowners who have received a foreclosure summons from the Court.  Funded by the Cook County Board, the Program was established in response to the recent economic recession and related mortgage crisis as an effort to help families in foreclosure throughout Cook County.

The Circuit Court of Cook County announced on April 20, 2010 the launch of a court-based mediation program for foreclosure cases filed in Cook County in response to the increasingly rising foreclosure rate. Plaintiffs filing residential foreclosures after April 12, 2010 must notify homeowners in the summons about their option to pursue mediation.

The Circuit Court of Cook County has created the Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program to assist homeowners who have received a foreclosure summons from the Court.  Funded by the Cook County Board, the Program was established in response to the recent economic recession and related mortgage crisis as an effort to help families in foreclosure throughout Cook County.

A conference entitled “Mortgage Foreclosure Policy: Past, Present, and Future” brought together leading practitioners and scholars of the foreclosure crisis at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to highlight national and local efforts to combat foreclosures, engage in critical discussion of the causes of and solutions to the crisis, and develop plans to avoid future foreclosure crises.