The house three doors down from Source News Editor Eric Flowers had been vacant for years when, last September, Flowers wrote “Treading Water in Foreclosureville: What happens when your neighbor walks away and no one returns.”
It’s a hell of a read and a piece that captures the defining story of this town since the house market crumbled around us.
The Society of Professional Journalists and the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association agree and have both singled out Flowers story for recognition.
In May, the Source learned Flowers won a Mark of Excellence award from SPJ in the Social Issues Reporting category for the story. ONPA notified the newspaper earlier this month that Flowers would win another award for the story at the organization’s annual July conference.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
“We don’t talk about it—the dilapidated two-two story eyesore with a collapsing fence and a yard full of knee-high weeds that have dried to a brown, come-hither-wildfire crisp through the late summer. The home, if you can call it that, has been neglected for so long that it’s become invisible to most of us who live here. We’d rather not think about what the unclaimed phonebooks, flyers and foreclosure notices that pile up on the front porch mean for our property values. Most of us bought during the boom and are already underwater on our mortgages, treading water in a town where the tide of foreclosures has washed away dreams and savings.”
To read the rest of the story click here.
Congratulations, Eric. Well deserved.
