Thousands of vacant homes in the City of Chicago are likely poorly maintained, lack clear ownership, and threaten to destabilize neighborhoods, says a report released today by Woodstock Institute.

Remember the story of the Grinch? He’s the green creature with a heart two sizes too small who stole holiday presents and good cheer from the unsuspecting citizens of Whoville. We’re kicking off a campaign to warn against a slightly different species of Grinch that poses a danger during the holiday season: the Payday Grinch.

The financial crisis resulted in billions of dollars of wealth lost by families across the country, persistently high unemployment, steadily high foreclosure rates, and the highest recorded percentage of people living in poverty. There’s no doubting that the financial crisis was deeply devastating—but was it a crime?

Froylan and Amparo Nuñez remember what their block in South Chicago was like back in the day. Good jobs were still available at the steel mills nearby and their son, Froilan Jr., played next door with his friend Hector.

Times have changed. The Nuñezes now have little granddaughters. The steel mills have long closed, and Froylan Sr. ended up working on a garbage truck for nineteen years. And their little bungalow, as Ashley Gross reports for Chicago Public Radio, is an island of stability on an increasingly troubled street. Hector’s old house is now boarded up and tagged by the Latin Dragons, who use it as a drug house. While some of the homes are neatly tended, clusters of boarded-up homes attract garbage and foster gang activity and drug sales.

Completed foreclosure auctions in the Chicago six-county region rose by 44.9 percent over the last year from the third quarter of 2009 to the third quarter of 2010, new data from Woodstock Institute show. The largest increases in completed foreclosures from the third quarter of 2009 to the third quarter of 2010 were in Northwest Cook County (93.7 percent), Southwest Cook County (74.4 percent), and South Cook County (50.9 percent). In the first three quarters of 2010 in the six-county Chicago region, 26,870 properties completed the foreclosure process and went to auction. This is an increase of 37.4 percent from the same period in 2009.

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