November 16, 2015 10:25 p.m.

Meet the Residents of MacDonough Street

“I was talked into taking out a mortgage by a person who turned out to be a predatory lender.”

—Ed Parker

Ed Parker, 62Landlord, Former Commercial Driver

Moved from: Bed-Stuy

So my house wound up in foreclosure. I’ve had attorneys working on it for six years. It’s like you’re in a guillotine, waiting for the blade to drop.

My parents were from the South. Her uncle, who owned this house, brought her up here when she was 17. After he died, we moved in. When we came over here, I was about 10. I made friends, friends made me. There were two boys who lived down the block. When I first met them I was sitting on this curb on Patchen Avenue, crying, because my father was struggling with alcoholism. These two boys wanted to know why I was crying and then console me.

We stayed friends until I became a missionary and nobody knew where I went. They already thought I was a little weird. I was walking around in my bare feet and this robe in the summertime. I wanted to be a hippie. You see a picture of Moses or Jesus, in those robes, I kind of liked the image that Jesus gave — a sage, walking around and talking about the things, the wisdom that you have.

The block thought I was weird. And they told me on a regular basis. But they didn’t ostracize me. I still played with them; they played with me. Who is that walking around in the summertime in their bare feet? Oh, that’s Parker. But also, “Parker, where’s the party?” I was throwing a lot of house parties in the basement. My mother’d have these little decorative plastic lamps on chains. It was a ball. We’d do cookouts. We cut out a little hole in the basement wall so we could put up a strobe light.

By the time I was in my senior year of high school, I was hooking school two weeks at a time. It wasn’t until about ten years ago that I went back to college, Long Island University. Then I got mentally ill and thought, Oh, I don’t belong here, I’m a fraud. After my mother died in 1999, I really crashed and burned. I had to get psychic medication. And I’m still on it. Depression and anxiety.

It’s been a progression of things that brought me to this point [of foreclosure]. I was talked into taking out a mortgage by a person who turned out to be a predatory lender. I refinanced four times after that. My mortgage rate went from 4 percent to 11 percent. I was paying $5,600 a month for a mortgage. I tried to do a loan modification, but it fell through.

I needed five surgeries, and because I didn’t have health insurance, the surgeries got delayed and the problems got worse. My wife was under a new stress seeing me like that. She left me. My wife and my little girl are gone, I haven’t seen them in years. I haven’t even spoken to them. All the things I defined myself by, I was losing. I was a father and a husband, I lost my little girl and my wife. I was a homeowner, my house was in foreclosure. I lost my job. Now who am I?

Eventually I was able to get my health insurance back, and I had five surgeries, replacing all my ball and socket joints, including the hips and the shoulders. Then I became a Christian missionary. Do you know Francis of Assisi? Saint Francis would chastise his body. If he used words he didn’t want to use, he’d put rocks in his mouth. Very extreme stuff. I started doing this. In the part of the mountains we were in, the mountain would freeze at night. And I would go and take almost all of my clothes off. And I would stay out all night, praying. I would get into the cold shower, and if the water wasn’t cold enough I would get out and fill the tub with ice. If you’ve ever felt that your prayers could be more sincere, get in a tub of ice water and see how sincere your prayers get right away.

Ten years ago, a house down the block went for $1 million. I thought that was incredible. Last week, I found out that a house across the street went for one-point-five. So my house may not be underwater anymore. I’m putting feelers out; I’m going to start showing the house. I owe $800,000. I need to get a million to get out. The attorneys told me that it would be about a year before I’d have to move, so maybe by the spring. How do I deal with losing stuff? I’ve been in such a habit of defining myself by my loss.

Learn more about how houses fall into foreclosure.

According to the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, the foreclosure process in New York State takes, on average, over two years. First, a homeowner falls behind on the mortgage. Generally after two or three months in default, the lender will send the homeowner an “acceleration letter” asking the entire amount due be paid in full by a certain date. Additionally, the lender must send the homeowner a pre-foreclosure notice providing them with 90 days to bring the loan current. If the deadline passes without payment, the lender initiates a foreclosure lawsuit against the homeowner. The lender must then file proof with the court that it properly served the homeowner with notice of the lawsuit. After being served, the homeowner has no less than 20 days to file a written response.

Learn about the migration of blacks from the South to New York City in the first half of the 20th century.

The Great Migration

The vast movement of African-Americans from the South to the North in the early- and mid-20th century is often referred to as the Great Migration. Most had been sharecroppers, and a series of bad growing years, flooding, and the devastation of the cotton crop by the boll weevil drove them to seek work elsewhere. Northern industries needed laborers, especially as World War I began. The North also offered more freedom from Jim Crow laws, which grew stricter after the war. Black veterans who returned from World War I expecting to be treated as equals found the country more hostile than they had left it, with an increase in race riots and lynchings, particularly in the South.

A second wave came north after the Great Depression ravaged the southern economy even further, amid continuing racial attacks. New York, 1.8 percent black in 1900, was 14 percent black in 1960. The North was not the haven the migrants had hoped. There were more jobs available, but blacks were restricted to menial labor irrespective of their skills and educational levels. Although segregation was not on the books, as it was in the South, African-Americans effectively found themselves limited by neighborhood, owing to redlining and coercion. Most settled in Harlem and, later, parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Edward Parker talks about what he’s charged in rent over the years.

“My mother had rented [the top floor] to friends of the family. Years later, when I approached the woman about increasing the rent, she left. She was paying like $400 a month. Maybe about 14 years ago. Now, $1,000 a month is still cheap. I have two renters. I was getting about $2,000 a month from them. One of the highest rents I’ve seen on this block is $2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. I thought that $1,200 was a lot. Then I found out that programs will pay $1,400 for a one-bedroom. I prefer programs because usually they mail me the money. I’m not a big fan of having to go and ask people where’s the rent. If they’re not on any programs, they’re just on welfare; the most welfare pays is $215 a month. You can’t get a room for less than $600 a month in this neighborhood. The guy on the top floor, he gets his top floor for $1,000 a month. He’s been here for ten years, and I’ve never raised the rent on him. I’m not really a landlord, I don’t really have the sense to be a landlord. Because I should have been raising the rent on these people every year, if only 3 percent.”

See the block’s highest home sales.

Top Ten Home Sales

6/12/2015	$1,560,000
8/7/2015	$1,550,000
5/22/2015	$1,545,000
2/6/2015	$1,410,000
9/8/2014	$1,350,000
6/23/2015	$1,100,000
7/3/2014	$900,000
5/18/2006	$755,000
9/21/2011	$750,000
5/5/2006	$725,000

Next home

Meet Alexis Lamb who lives up the block.

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