May 14--A former banking executive in Chicago will lead the National Community Stabilization Trust in a new direction, seven years after the national nonprofit was formed to deal with the flood of foreclosed properties crippling neighborhoods and bringing down property values.
Robert Grossinger, who got his start in Chicago as a legal aid attorney and rose to become a Bank of America executive before joining the nonprofit world almost five years ago, will start Monday as president of the trust. Its new strategy will target the parts of the Chicago area and other cities where housing's recovery has lagged.
That's a change for the trust, which was formed in 2008 to help stabilize neighborhoods and has acted as a sort of middleman to transfer foreclosed, abandoned homes across the country to local housing groups that could return them to productive use by families. The trust has helped move more than 18,500 properties nationally since 2009.
"That environment is over in most places," Grossinger said. "If you look at a state like California, there are hardly any (bank-owned) properties. The challenge now is the left-behind markets -- parts of Chicago (and) there's many different parts in Ohio, including Cleveland. Florida has a few markets left behind. So does New Jersey and Pennsylvania."
Grossinger, who turns 60 on Friday, will work from Chicago rather than the trust's Washington, D.C., headquarters. He will succeed Craig Nickerson, who is retiring.
The nonprofit will continue to work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Cook County Land Bank Authority to identify and transfer select abandoned, foreclosed Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed homes to nonprofit groups and their developers.
But the trust also is interested in buying delinquent home loans through a subsidiary and working with homeowners to achieve the best outcome, as well as finding opportunities for longtime empty lots because, as Grossinger notes, they can't all become community gardens.
"We have to use that platform to work in places like the south and west sides of Chicago, the south suburbs, and Detroit, to work in a targeted way in those markets," said Ed Jacob, chairman of the trust's board. "(Grossinger) is the right person to carry out that strategy. He's got incredible experience on both sides of the table."
Research published this week by the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University found that in Chicago and suburban Cook County, home prices have come off their lows during the housing crisis but the recovery has been spotty at best and some area home prices remain lower than they were in 2000.
In 2010, Grossinger left Bank of America, where oversaw the bank's neighborhood stabilization efforts, to join nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners as a vice president for national foreclosure response. Earlier in his career, he held roles at LaSalle Bank, Bank One, the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the Illinois Housing Development Authority.
"I watched communities I'd worked in and developments (that) took hold get wiped out," he said. "It was devastating. That housing recovery didn't help everyone."
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
