Why you should care about that home next door in foreclosure

What’s all this housing mess really matter to you anyway? Most of the readers of this blog aren’t homeowners. They are college students or recent graduates trying to make their way in their young careers. They haven’t begun to think about having to keep up with the landscaping or replace that leaking roof. So, most aren’t that worried about the mortgage crisis. It has no effect on them, right?

Wrong.

Think about this: for every home that sits empty, abandoned by families facing foreclosure, that’s one less home that the local municipality can collect tax dollars on. For the houses that surround it, that means that their property value is in jeopardy of falling. A falling property value is reflected in falling property taxes.

As educators (or future ones) we should all be keenly aware of what that means. Stop and think about who writes your paycheck and you may be even more disturbed by the mortgage crisis than ever before. That’s right - your paycheck comes from the property taxes paid in by homeowners in your school district.
This same principle is what keeps many municipalities fighting to keep a limited number of trailer parks from entering their community. It isn’t that they don’t like the looks of them, but these virtually property-less, low-cost houses are home to hundreds of school-age children who need to be educated, but whose parents don’t pay in enough property taxes to come close to paying for their share of the educational tab.

So, questions remains about what can be done to ease the financial burden and alleviate the triple-threat that school districts are feeling these days brought on by rising gas prices, rising food costs and falling income.

I’d like to hear your ideas on the matter, since I’m a little short of answers myself. Respond to this blog posting by commenting and giving your best shot at solving this issue.