For his re-election campaign in Massachusetts, Senator Kerry has been traveling across the state in a series of "Kerry on your Corner" appearances. Today, he visited New Bedford, and I was truly struck by the dilapidated state of the neighborhood he toured. The video was captured by SouthCoastToday.com
It starts off with Senator Kerry giving a speech, but then it intermingles Kerry's walking tour with his descriptions of the toll foreclosures cause to neighborhoods and cities, with devastating effect. Come below the fold to view it.
This puts into pictures what the phrase "high foreclosure neighborhood" means:
I know that it is human nature to look at what has not been done, as in what the Democrats in Congress have not accomplished, but the Housing bill just passed was significant and will provide relief to cities like New Bedford. As Senator Kerry said earlier in the day in Falls River, there were important elements in that and a few other bills that were passed:
Kerry ticked off a list that included a $4 billion revolving fund for low- and moderate-income housing, legislation to help veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan avoid foreclosures, $280 million in funding to prevent foreclosures and aid first-time homebuyers and pushing to increase Community Block Development Grants to aid communities.
Still, so much more needs to be done. For those of us who have made that step into home ownership there is nothing more terrifying than the prospect of your neighborhood going downhill, and therein your equity and much of your life savings as well. The above video may not be Baghdad or Afghanistan, where our troops are in constant danger. But it does illustrate a decay in our own country that can fill us with as much dread as the possibility of another terrorist attack. And, this, in Massachusetts, one of the wealthiest states in the union.
This is what is happening to our country in every state and nearly every city. It is the quiet tragedy that is happening every day. Something to remember the next time the pundits talk about celebrity, the latest presidential poll, or Paris Hilton. People are hurting.