Rep. Cummings becoming voice for distressed homeowners
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings doesn’t need to go farther than his front stoop to see the scars of the housing crisis.
“That one was foreclosed on,” the 61-year-old Maryland Democrat said on a recent morning outside his brick rowhouse in this city’s Madison Park neighborhood, pointing to an empty house nearby with a “No Trespassing” sign in the front window.
“That house has been vacant now at least 9 months,” Cummings said, nodding across the street toward another home, its windows boarded shut. The owner lost his job and no longer could afford the payments, he said. “He was a good guy.”
“This house here was in foreclosure,” Cummings said, pointing farther down the block. “I understand someone just bought it for a song and a dance.”
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/2012/06/25/gJQAkV3l2V_singlePage.html