Strange times, strange solutions: Just stay put

Remember the guy in Florida who breaks into vacant foreclosures and matches them up with a homeless "house sitter"? Well, Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur is eliminating the middleman and urging troubled homeowners to just stay put. From the Toledo Blade on Saturday:

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) is advocating homeowners threatened with foreclosure exercise squatter's rights in trying to stave off the loss of their house.

"I'm saying to them possession is 99 percent of the law; you stay in your house," Miss Kaptur said yesterday, continuing a crusade she started several weeks ago in Congress and CNN picked up Thursday night.

She said she believes that many so-called predatory and subprime loans -- those made to borrowers who did not qualify for a conventional mortgage -- may have been illegal.

She urged homeowners not to panic and leave their home just because they receive a foreclosure notice from their lender, and she said they should demand that the mortgage-holder produce a mortgage audit.

"I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave," she said during a speech in Congress earlier this month.

Her advice is causing a flap in some corners. The Blade quotes Realtor Jim Moody, a Toledo mayoral candidate, as saying "This is goofy."

Her motivation?

Miss Kaptur said she started advocating that homeowners fight foreclosure by staying [in] their home after it became clear that the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry passed last year was not working as intended by Congress.

Well, she got that part right.

OK, we've seen a Florida "solution," now an Ohio version. It's probably just a matter of time before a Californian tops these. Hat tip to Luke Mullins' Home Front blog at U.S. News & World Report.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Rep. Marcy Kaptur spoke during a rally at a Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, in December. Credit: Madalyn Ruggiero / Associated Press