Released: March 24, 2008

Foreclosure fairs offer support to homeowners

Source: Evelyn Nieves, Associate Press [USA Today]

MERCED, Calif. — An overflow crowd piled into the Merced Civic Center, spilling out of the main auditorium, into the halls and down the stairs. Some brought babies, others elderly parents. Everyone brought their paperwork — the sum of their financial lives and wreckage of their American Dream.

A foreclosure prevention fair on a brilliant Saturday afternoon was the place of choice for more than 200 people in Merced, a city of 65,000 best known as the gateway to Yosemite National Park.

The fair kicked off a series of events planned in March, or what local politicians have dubbed “Foreclosure Prevention Month,” around the northern San Joaquin Valley as well as cities from Florida to Chicago and places west. The world’s most fertile farm region, the San Joaquin Valley includes three metro areas — Stockton, Modesto and Merced — with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.

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