Sunday, February 22, 2009

When the housing crisis gets literally too close to home

I’d seen stories on TV news about how people who’d lost their homes just packed up what they could into their cars, after which crews would come and clear out everything else they’d left behind. This Sunday I saw it happen in my own neighborhood.

A bank-owned home being "trashed-out" in Santa Clara.

I was walking my dog in a light afternoon rain when I came upon this scene: a “Bank Owned” real estate sign planted in front of a modest three-bedroom tan stucco-walled home in the 500 block of Chapman Court, just off The Alameda, in Santa Clara. Parked across the street was a dumpster, filled with a mattress, armchairs, shelves and other possessions that had made that house a home. Shuttling back and forth between the house and the dumpster were three men working in what is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the country: clearing out foreclosed homes.

The crew leader, José, said he works for a Las Vegas company that, despite being overwhelmed with work clearing out homes in that distressed market, dispatched him here where there is also plenty of work. Since he arrived in the San Jose area seven days ago, José said he’s not had a day off and averages 16 of these house-clearing projects a day.

Banks and mortgage lenders hire such companies to clear out foreclosed homes and clean them up so they can be put back on the market as quickly as possible, so the lender can make some of their money back.

A child's school photo left behind

The onetime owner of the Chapman Court house did come back after moving out to retrieve some valuable items, José said, such as TV sets or computers, and what was left behind was rightly headed to the landfill or at best a rummage sale. But I’ve seen cases in which seemingly everything was left behind. A report aired on a recent "NBC Nightly News" but I'm having trouble including the link. But here's another report from PBS’s “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” from Oct. 2008 on clearing out abandoned homes.

In the NBC report, golf clubs, sofas, paintings and some personal items are taken away by “trash-out companies” and while some items are set aside to be given to charities, many were simply thrown out. In the PBS report, residents left behind newer TVs, computers, important documents like a birth certificate and other perfectly good items.

A dumpster of what had made this house a home

It’s bad enough that people lose their homes. But I find it just heartbreaking that people find themselves in such desperate straits that they have neither the time nor the resources to try to save some of their belongings in order to furnish their next home, even if it’s only going to be a rental.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Worst of Recession Lies Ahead

I attended a frankly chilling discussion Wednesday on the economy at an event sponsored by the Churchill Club, a public affairs forum. Two Silicon Valley executives, a venture capitalist and a well-known law professor presented a sobering forecast about how the economy is going to fall further before picking back up again. I wrote about the event in an article titled Worst of Recession Lies Ahead, which is posted on Suite101.com. One of the panelists, Lisa Lambert of Intel Capital, pointed out that it has been during some of the worst economic downturns that some of the biggest innovations have come to market. Such Historical Perspective can provide reason for optimism in these bleak times.

Friday, February 13, 2009

A burst of creative energy on Suite101.com

I got ambitious the other day and pounded out TWO Suite101.com posts. The first was on SaaS...software-as-a-service...the new distribution model for software in which enterprises access applications online rather than installing it on their own network. The story "SaaS Growth Depends on Integration" looks at how SaaS applications have to work well together with on-premise apps.

The other story was on cars, specifically plug-in hybrid electric cars. I've written a couple of stories of gas-electric hybrids, but this was my first on plug-ins. The story, "Electric Cars Will Need a Fill-up, too," looks at two different business models for developing electric car charging stations.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Robert the car guy

Besides writing about technology, I've also been blogging of late on one of my favorite subjects: I'm a car guy. I write for a blog site called Suite101.com. It's called 101 because a lot of the posts are how-to in nature, like an introductory college course, 101.
Here's one I posted recently on the Honda Insight, an upcoming challenger to the Toyota Prius among hybrid cars.

I also wrote this preview of the Ford Fusion Hybrid due in the spring.

Earlier I wrote about other gas-sipping cars that aren't hybrids, such as the Honda Fit.
My neighbor just bought one of these. I'm not sure whether this dilutes my "brand" as a tech journalist or just shows my versatility. In the stories, I do write about hybrid technology so I think it covers both. And according to sage career advice: "Do what you love and the money will follow."
(Photos are courtesy of Honda and Ford.)