business

When Jennifer Barger's household of seven rented a new house in New Prague last June, she hoped the local schools would be a boon for her stepchildren.

But now that the family has settled in, it may get uprooted again. Barger got notice earlier this month that the house is being sold in a sheriff's foreclosure sale in November. She's hoping the family can remain for six months after the sale. Meanwhile, she said, she's not sure who is rightfully due her rent. And she fears the effect another move might have.

"We were trying to better ourselves and better our kids' lives," she said "I'm extremely mad."

Barger's situation illustrates the trickle-down effects from Minnesota's wave of foreclosures, as the financial troubles of rental property owners descend on renters. As people scramble for new homes, an unexpected increase in homelessness has agencies working to document how much is due to foreclosures.

Metrowide numbers are hard to come by, but at least 2,500 tenant households are expected to be disrupted by foreclosures in Hennepin County alone this year, according to a county task force. Hennepin accounted for about 27 percent of the state's foreclosures over the last two years.

Renters caught in foreclosure come from a wide range of situations.

Elizabeth Eide, 27, and her husband, Chris, 32, learned about three weeks ago that their house in Albertville was in foreclosure. They had been renting for $1,350 a month since February and were hoping to buy it.

"It is really disappointing," said Elizabeth Eide, an executive assistant to a management consulting firm. "It's frustrating being a tenant and knowing your house is being foreclosed and there is nothing you can do." Her husband has a snow-removal and lawn-care business with his father. They have three children.

With financial help from her parents, the Eides are trying to buy a house in nearby Otsego, Minn., that is close to foreclosure itself. The owner of that house paid $407,000 for it, she said, and they may get it for $210,000.

Tania Book, a single mother, said she learned about a month ago that her St. Paul duplex was to be sold at a sheriff's foreclosure auction on Oct. 11.

She said she contacted the owners and was told that she could stay for free for three months before the foreclosure was finalized, saving $800 a month rent. But she has since learned that the heat will be shut off on Nov. 1, unless she and the upstairs tenant pay the monthly natural gas bill from Xcel Energy, which runs $300 to $500.

"I am devastated," Book said. "This has been my security for four years for me and my two small children. ... I don't know what I am going to do. I am very stressed out."

Ironically, Book is working as a property manager for apartment buildings while she studies to become a police officer.

Low-income renters hit hard

"People don't think of low-income families in apartments being hurt by the mortgage crisis," said the Rev. John Estrem, CEO of Catholic Charities. "But in many ways, they are the most vulnerable -- and the least to blame when they get tossed out."

Some are able to find other low-rent apartments, but others do not.

Homeless families increasingly are seeking emergency shelter at places like the Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul. It normally serves up to 150 single people nightly but in September gave emergency shelter to a record 88 families. For the first nine months 458 families have stayed there, nearly as many as in all of 2006.

"How many of them are homeless because of apartment foreclosures? We don't have hard numbers," Bergland said. "At this point, we just know it's happening."