July 11, 2008

Subprime: The Miami Case Study

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According to RealtyTrac, a California-based firm that monitors foreclosures for
investors, a foreclosure notice was delivered last month to one in every 501 U.S. households.

Yet the housing crisis goes even deeper than those numbers suggest. While the burst of the housing-market bubble is nearly always pegged to the surge in risky subprime mortgages made to under-resourced borrowers over the course of the last decade, the bust is also affecting people who never borrowed a dime.

In Miami, the foreclosure epidemic encompasses not only single-family homes, but apartment buildings as well. And with a flood of people losing their homes now entering the rental market, rents are climbing.

Tomorrow, Floridians can join Laura Flanders and the Media Consortium to talk more about these issues at Live From Main Street in Miami’s Lyric Theater: “Magic City, Hard Times: How is Miami Facing the Economic Crisis and Working
Toward a Sustainable Future?”

—Adele M. Stan

Adele M. Stan is executive
editor for The Media Consortium, a network of progressive media
organizations, including Mother Jones.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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