An important part of any agenda to rebuild Michigan's urban areas is the protection of the residents' most important asset -- their home. Michigan's economic situation, coupled with the current credit and housing crisis, has led to a foreclosure epidemic in Michigan. Through July 2009, Michigan had the 9th highest foreclosure total in the nation for the year.

Protecting homeowners and families means that state leaders need to recognize this crisis and act quickly and aggressively to preserve homeowners' equity, restore the real estate market and keep families in their homes whenever possible.

Only Mike Cox has the experience and the record to protect Michigan's families and neighborhoods. As Governor, Cox will continually develop ways to preserve neighborhoods and protect homeowners.

The Attorney General pioneered a multi-track approach to dealing with the epic numbers of mortgage foreclosures sweeping across Michigan. As a result, almost 50,000 current or former homeowners in Michigan have directly benefited.

The first track included a series of free "Avoid Foreclosure" seminars, bringing together national and Michigan home loan lenders and servicers with thousands of borrowers in cities across the state.

The second prong of this approach is vigorous prosecution of mortgage fraud. In 2009, the Attorney General's office partnered with the Michigan State Police to bring charges against individuals and mortgage firms across the state involved in multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scams. The Attorney General's Office is a key partner in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force. This task force includes members of the Michigan State Police and local law enforcement, and targets larger mortgage fraud scams and rings across the state.

The Attorney General's Office has aggressively moved against companies that have engaged in questionable lending practices. The AG's Office has negotiated comprehensive settlements with Countrywide Financial, one of America's largest home mortgage providers, and Ameriquest. These agreements have provided assistance to tens of thousands of homeowners in Michigan, allowing homeowners to stay in their homes and stabilize neighborhoods.

As Governor, Mike Cox will promote greenspace consolidation in cities as a way to increase density in declining urban centers. By grouping together vacant or abandoned lots, reducing the burden of maintaining an oversized infrastructure system while improving property values and quality of life for the surrounding families and neighborhoods, cities can become more manageable to administer and more cost-efficient.

Like Detroit, Youngstown, Ohio has lost more than 50% of its population since the 1980s. Recently, Youngstown has embarked on a "grey to green" movement, focusing on creating green space to absorb portions of desolate urban landscape and to create density in the remaining portions of the city. Working with nonprofits and entrepreneurs, Mike Cox will seek the creation of city green space to turn population loss into urban victories. Ideas like large-scale urban farming create the possibility of creating urban green space, local urban food production for more healthy diets and lessening city structural costs as police and other services become concentrated in non-green sections of the city. While the Youngstown experience is still new and the outcome unclear, it is important to note that many international cities have shrunk and regrown. Even without population growth, Mike Cox believes our great cities can be renewed by new ideas and innovation.

As Governor, Mike Cox will encourage the maintenance and repair of foreclosed homes by implementing a local property tax credit for repairs to these homes that will apply to the bank, investor/realtor or the new buyer. The state needs to continue funding assistance for cities to repair or tear down abandoned and blighted homes to prevent crime and slipping property values.

Mike Cox will maintain the Homestead Exemption on a foreclosed property for up to three years (similar to new law that allows one owner to claim the exemption on two homes as long as one is for sale), reducing by 75% the property tax portion of the closing costs for a prospective buyer.

As Governor, Mike Cox will establish a model ordinance for local communities to adopt that will establish a consistent understanding of who is responsible for the maintenance of a foreclosed home to protect the values of that home and those around it. Farmington and Flint Township have developed similar local ordinances.

Mike Cox will promote the adoption of a proposal from the Michigan Association of Realtors to require pop-up increases to be based upon a ratio of total sales in a community from the previous year (SEV to TV) as opposed to the current system where each property's tax pops up based upon the full sales price of that home, creating wide disparities among neighboring homes.