Homeless living in foreclosed homes?

I came across an interesting story on the Web site of the National Association of Realtors this morning. The site ran a short feature about homeless people moving into foreclosed properties. You can read it here.

According to the story, originally written by Thomas Sheeran for the Associated Press, police arrested one homeless man on a code violation for living in a foreclosed home without water in Manteca, Calif. Police arrested another man in Cape Coral, Fla., according to the story, who had been living in a foreclosed home since helping his friend move out of the same residence several weeks earlier.

These are sad stories, on both ends: Sad that someone lost their homes to foreclosure, sad that anyone would find living in a home without water or electricity a step up from their current conditions.

This current housing crisis is creating a lot of new victims, people who’ve lost their homes — some due to their own greed, of course, but many, too, because of unforeseen financial hardships or corrupt mortgage lenders — and others who are barely able to make their mortgage payments. But we can’t forget that the so-called American dream of homeownership has always been out of reach for a large segment of the U.S. population. For many, even renting is out of reach.