A fledgling local group is using muscle and sweat to counter the demoralizing effects a wave of housing foreclosures has inflicted on Murrieta neighborhoods.

So far, Neighbors Helping Neighbors has spruced up nearly 100 Murrieta lots or homes that have been snared by the unemployment-fueled economic collapse.

Much of the work – which can involve city officials and local trash companies – centers on cutting weeds, trimming palm fronds and other landscaping work.

"It all comes down to four words: ‘If not us, who?’" said Barbara Nugent, a project coordinator.

"If you want to keep up your neighborhood," she continued, "I think it will take sweat equity and the willingness to get dirty, tired and frustrated with the process. But in the end you have done something and you can see the difference."

Nugent hopes her group’s work cleaning up foreclosed and bank-owned homes at little or no cost will prompt other communities to launch similar grassroots efforts.

Besides drawing on adult volunteers, the program is seen as a way for high school students to earn their state-mandated community service credits, she said.

"We need to take back our neighborhoods and I see this project as a vehicle for doing that," Nugent said during a recent work day that attracted about seven volunteers. Some projects have attracted as many as 14 workers, she said.

"I am not a Pollyanna," she said. "Not everyone will care. Not everyone will want to work, but many will care, work or contribute in some other way."

Murrieta is one of dozens of cities in the region that have been caught in a wave of foreclosures and mortgage defaults that has inundated the Inland Empire and the rest of the nation over the past year.

Such financial setbacks snared nearly 17,000 Riverside County homeowners in the first quarter of this year, a 12.5-percent increase over the same period a year earlier, according to MDA DataQuick, which tracks real estate sales and trends.

About 58 percent of all California resale housing transactions during the first quarter of 2009 involved foreclosures or short-sale Advertisement
deals, according to a report issued by the data tracking firm.

That rate is up from 33 percent of the real estate transactions charted in the same period a year earlier, the report said.

It is not unusual, throughout much of the Temecula and Murrieta areas, to spot two or three foreclosed or bank-owned homes in the same block of housing tracts where property values a few years ago had surged past the $400,000 mark.

"We don’t see any signs of [foreclosure rates] slowing down until the end of this year or into 2010," said Ann Sanchez, a real estate agent for Empire Capital Group, Inc.

Efforts to market those properties can be hampered by dead grass, tall weeds, overgrown shrubs and wind-tossed trash, she said.

"Due to the excess amount of real estate-owned assets, banks are now selling most of these homes in ‘as-is’ condition, which means what you see is what you get," Sanchez said.

Such conditions can also demoralize neighbors and spark concerns among city and county agencies.

Murrieta residents Cindy Schuck and Mary Gardner are among Neighbors Helping Neighbors’ earliest members.

They got involved more than a year ago and are part of a cadre of tight-knit volunteers who are only a phone call away when there’s work to be done.

"Every house we do, people always stop by and ask if we are the new owners," she said. "When they find out what we are doing, they usually come back to help in one way or another."

Two Mormon leaders who were visiting the area as part of their faith’s missionary work were among the volunteers on a recent Neighbors project.

"This is great way to help out our society," said John Schmidt, a visiting Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints elder.

He and some fellow missionaries have volunteered in the program for the past several months.

"It gives us a great opportunity to meet new people and continue on with our missions," added fellow church elder Austin Hansen.

More information on the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program is available at the city of Murrieta’s Web site, www.murrieta.org, and by calling Barbara Nugent at (951) 677-2430.