Are high taxes pushing Lake County residents from their homes?

CROWN POINT | Lake County residents are walking away from their homes in what may be record numbers.

County officials insist neither they nor high taxes are at fault here.

One tax protester disagrees. "People are literally abandoning their homes, and politicians are trying to candy coat it and act like nothing's wrong," said Dado Rothenberg, a founding member of Can't Pay! Won't Pay!

The Lake County Sheriff's Department has listed 1,666 mortgage foreclosures in only the first six months of this year. That is already more than all of 2005. If that trend continues, it will be the largest number of foreclosures in 11 years of record keeping.

RealtyTrac, an online national marketer of foreclosure properties, released figures this week showing that in the second quarter of 2006 Lake County's rate of one foreclosure for every 317 households was well over the national average of one per 425.

Two-thirds of the foreclosures are in Gary, Hammond, East Chicago and Whiting --- where property tax bills have more than doubled in recent years.

County officials are preparing what may be the largest tax delinquency sale in the state, potentially dispossessing owners of 22,000 county properties.

This comes after months of warning by Can't Pay! Won't Pay!, a Whiting-based anti-tax group, that if local officials didn't cut taxes soon, some people would be left with no roofs over their heads.

County officials insist they are not the villains.

Commissioner Fran DuPey, D-Hammond, said the county hasn't evicted anyone for back taxes since a controversial property reassessment boosted tax bills for 30,000 north county homeowners two years ago.

Ted Prettyman, a member of the Miller Citizens Corp. which also helped lead tax protests, said that while he has heard of isolated cases of taxes driving away some homeowners, "I think the 2 percent tax cap took the steam out of a lot of people's concerns."

The County Council has softened the blow of higher taxes by capping homeowners' property tax bills at 2 percent of a home's gross assessed value. "That represents more than $14 million in tax breaks," Council President Will Smith Jr. said.

County Treasurer John Petalas said, "No one wants to put people out of homes. What would we do with them?"

Nevertheless, the county is planning its first tax sale in three years this fall.

James Hughes, president of SRI Inc., which is helping organize the sale said, "I've been involved in tax sales around the state for 17 years, and I believe this is the largest."

He said most of the 22,000 parcels are vacant lots and for the few homes that may be eligible for sale, "We are going to some of the homes where people live and hand the notice to them directly so there is no misunderstanding."

DuPey said, "I have been assured this involves people who were continuously delinquent prior to this (reassessment) mess, but I will check it out to make sure people who saw their bills go from $2,000 to $6,000 are not on it."

Petalas said, "Once the tax sale notices go out, that number will be whittled down by half. Some people wait until they get the letters before they take care of their delinquencies. If we get a hardship case, we put them on a plan and waive them from the tax sale list."

Rothenberg complains these as well as other credits offered by municipalities are temporary fixes.

"What are we going to do next year and the year after that? Nothing will happen until people are spitting mad and make their representatives do something," Rothenberg said.

Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez said foreclosures can be caused by a multitude of problems, of which high taxes is only one.

"They usually happen because of a loss of employment, a family dissolution, catastrophic illness, or they are moving out of the area and have little equity in the home."

The sheriff said many people bought homes with adjustable rate mortgages when rates were low. "Interest rates have climbed up and put them over the edge," he said.