Harvard

New guide helps tenants fight off foreclosure

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By Talia Whyte

Bay State Banner

The number of foreclosures continues to rise in Massachusetts, and the troubling tide is affecting not only homeowners, but renters as well.

There were 1,334 foreclosure deeds in April, a higher number than ever previously recorded in any single month, and the number of deeds through the first four months of 2008 outpaced those in the same period of 2005 by nearly 1,200 percent, according to The Warren Group, a Boston-based publisher of local real estate data and the Banker & Tradesman newspaper.

“The Massachusetts foreclosure mess is just not getting better,” said Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren Jr. in a late May statement accompanying the release of the new data. “Thousands of homeowners are entering the foreclosure process every month, and about one-third of them are losing their homes. It’s staggering to see how the numbers have exploded in the past three years.”

Some housing advocates argue that the explosion has unfairly victimized tenants, many of whom don’t know what rights they have when the buildings that they live in go into foreclosure.

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‘Wire’ creator talks urban decline in Hub

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By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

Few television shows impact the way viewers think about their place in society; the critically acclaimed HBO drama “The Wire,” which ended its five-season run last month, was one.

Although the series never found the high ratings enjoyed by some of the cable network’s other flagship programming, the multifaceted drama developed a devoted audience that included many critics, who frequently called it “the best show on television no one is watching.”

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