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Revisiting Floridas Foreclosure Ground Zero

Last week, I returned to Southwest Florida for the screening of my documentary film, Dreams for Sale: Lehigh Acres & the Florida Foreclosure Crisis, as part of the lineup at the inaugural 2011 Fort Myers Film Festival.
The trip was one of mixed emotions. While I was elated to present the film in the area I had originally visited for principal shooting almost 2 years ago, the sobering reality of Lee County’s dismal improvement from the 2006-2008 nadir of the foreclosure crisis tempered my excitement.
Lee County, with its numerous sprawling, foreclosure-ridden suburban communities, has been at the unfortunate center of attention ever since the housing boom came to a screeching halt partway through 2006. The area has frequently earned the unwanted title of “foreclosure ground zero,” and it is regularly thrown in with lists of other hard-hit economic fallout zones such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, parts of California, and the upper Midwest.
Back in 2009, when shooting Dreams for Sale, a few brave experts were suggesting that the bottom had already been reached and that recovery was just around the corner. And yet, two years later, the economic outlook in the hardest hit areas of the crisis remains grim. Although the national employment rate is beginning to tick upward, regional and local economies that were largely driven by construction and real estate (e.g. Lee County) will likely be last in line to see a measurable improvement.

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