In response to the Maryland Independent article dated October 28, 2009, “Sale in the News at Summit”, Steve Griessel, the developer of St Charles communities, was quoted as saying “the housing market collapse had been less severe in St. Charles than in Washington DC or the Nation as a whole”, and that “foreclosures are a complete nonevent for us”.  It amazes me that anyone would make such an unsubstantiated, off-the-cuff statement belittling the plight of so many families in Charles County that are in fact, losing their homes. And for others, foreclosures have resulted in dramatic devaluation of our homes.

According to First American Core Logic, a company who provides information to the Multi Regional Information System, there are more than 950 homes in Charles County, currently in some state of Foreclosure. There are as many as a 100-120 new defaults in the county each month according to data from Realtytrac.com.

Ironically, this article came out on the same day as WTOP News broke an article titled “New Flood of Foreclosures Likely to hit Area”. The article cited research from the Urban Institute on the study of housing in the Nations’ Capital where Charles County ranked number two, behind Prince Georges County in the percentage of foreclosures during the month of June.  Further, in July and August the number of new foreclosures outpaced the number of total home sales by 10%.

Everyone in our community continues to be impacted by home foreclosures. Property values are still declining, and jobless rates continue to increase.  We are not looking into someone else’s back yard. This is happening right here at home. Community leaders have a responsibility to report accurate information. Misstatements of this kind like the one made by Mr. Griessel, will only undermine the importance of finding a resolution to our current housing crisis.