Woodstock Institute and more than 120 Chicago community investment stakeholders celebrated the successes of local leaders and learned about the causes behind the financial crisis at last week’s 2012 Community Investment Awards and screening of The Flaw. Woodstock Institute president Dory Rand presented Community Investment Awards to Adam Gross of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer, and Mary Ellen Podmolik of the Chicago Tribune.

The Principal Reduction Alternative (PRA) portion of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)  experienced slow growth in new participants, new data show. PRA, which is designed to incentivize servicers to write down principal as part of the loan modification process, saw relatively flat levels of 15-17,000 trial modifications for the past seven months. At the same time, PRA permanent modifications grew steadily, suggesting that servicers are converting trial modifications into permanent ones but are not aggressively recruiting new participants to the program.

The Eastgate neighborhood in Park Forest, a village thirty miles south of Chicago, has seen its share of troubles. Relatively isolated from other development by the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve, many of the neighborhood’s 300-odd homes are in poor condition. Crime and blight have been on the rise, causing the Village of Park Forest to invest more and more funds into finding solutions to revitalize the area.

CHICAGO—Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will deliver the keynote address at Woodstock Institute’s annual Community Investment Awards and screening of David Sington’s documentary The Flaw.  Attorney General Madigan will focus her remarks on how the attorney general settlement with the country’s five largest servicers will impact Illinois homeowners.

We’re profiling the accomplishments of the leaders we will honor at the Community Investment Awards. Buy tickets now.

It’s hard to read much about the Chicago area housing market without running into a story by Mary Ellen Podmolik. Podmolik, a housing reporter and columnist for the Chicago Tribune, has tirelessly covered local housing news, from big-ticket real estate deals to the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the city’s most distressed neighborhoods, since 2008. In the process, Podmolik has established herself as an authoritative voice on the latest developments in housing, from federal policy to local realities. Woodstock Institute is pleased to honor Mary Ellen Podmolik with a 2012 Community Investment Award for better informing the Chicago region on the debates surrounding the foreclosure crisis, helping consumers make educated decisions, and telling the stories of Chicagoans impacted by the housing bust.

Chicago made history last year by passing a first-of-its-kind ordinance that makes sure that financial institutions are responsible for keeping homes in which they have an interest from falling into blight and disrepair. Data released today by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office show that the ordinance is already making a difference in how the City holds financial institutions responsible for vacant property maintenance.

We’re profiling the accomplishments of the leaders we will honor at the Community Investment Awards. Buy tickets now.

A family on the South Side of Chicago receives a notice from the sheriff that foreclosure proceedings are beginning on their house. Although the family has the right to stay in the home until proceedings are completed, they aren’t aware of that. Fearful of having their belongings thrown out on the street, the family moves out into a smaller apartment and leaves the home vacant.

Woodstock Institute and its board of directors are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2012 Community Investment Awards: Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer, Adam Gross of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), and Mary Ellen Podmolik of the Chicago Tribune. The recipients will be honored at Woodstock Institute’s annual Community Investment Awards reception on May 10, followed by a screening of David Sington’s documentary The Flaw.

Legislation before the Illinois Senate would allow occupied properties to be declared as vacant and abandoned. Why is this problematic? Once a property is declared vacant and abandoned, it would be eligible to have the foreclosure process accelerated. This strips families of due process to attempt to save their homes. Our colleagues at Housing Action Illinois say, “Without adequate protections to insure that buildings can only be designated abandoned if truly unoccupied, this legislation conflicts with the existing rights of occupants under the Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure Law and the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act to 90 days notice before being evicted.”

Imagine Gail, a 30-year-old mother of two school-age children. Gail is on ChexSystems and has a low credit score as the result of actions taken by an abusive former husband who controlled the household budget and joint accounts. (About 80 percent of banks use ChexSystems to screen applicants for past fraud or overdrawn accounts.) Now divorced, Gail goes to her local bank to open a checking account in her own name, but is denied.