As a crime prevention specialist for the Minneapolis Police Department, Tim Hammett knows firsthand the toll that the mortgage foreclosure crisis has taken on the city's North Side. Sometimes it even follows him home.
One day not long ago, Hammett pulled up in front of his house to find a woman ripping the aluminum siding off the empty house across the street, which, like hundreds of North Minneapolis properties, was in foreclosure.
The troubles have been greatly aggravated by an unusual amount of mortgage fraud, says Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Dixon. In one of the most notorious cases, a suburban real estate company, T.J. Waconia, bought numerous houses throughout North Minneapolis, using fraudulent appraisals, federal officials say. The firm's founders pleaded guilty to mail fraud this year, and 141 of its houses were placed in the hands of a court-appointed administrator.
Those houses now sit empty, contributing to the huge glut of abandoned properties and compounding the crime problem.
Those houses now sit empty, contributing to the huge glut of abandoned properties and compounding the crime problem.
If not sealed up adequately, many of these vacant properties get taken over by gangs, who use them for drug-dealing and prostitution, says Sgt. Richard Jackson of the Minneapolis Police Problem Properties Unit.
"It brings a lot of the criminal element into the area," Jackson says. "People have to travel in just to get their dope, or they have to travel here to get their prostitution."
In many cases, vandals strip the houses of built-in furniture, appliances and copper piping. At least three vacant North Minneapolis houses have exploded in flames because thieves took the pipes but neglected to shut off the gas, Jackson says.
