According to the Providence Journal , of the 198 properties that banks repossessed in Providence from July through November of last year, only 20 were resold to new homeowners during the period, according to a report released this week by the state’s housing agency, Rhode Island Housing. For a closer look at the mortgage and housing crisis, see Petrino DiLeo’s “Housing bubble deflates,” published in the International Socialist Review last year. In the Olneyville section, for example, state housing officials estimate that the foreclosure rate is closer to 9 percent. Rhode Island Housing reports that 386 multifamily houses in the state were advertised for foreclosure auction from September through December of last year–with two to five families, typically renters, affected in each building. On average, eight out of every 1,000 mortgages in Rhode Island fell into foreclosure during the second quarter of last year–four times the foreclosure rate of two per 1,000 mortgages in the second quarter of 1991, during the state’s banking crisis. Read More