EDITOR'S NOTE:

With over 1.2 million foreclosed homes in the last two years, California leads the nation in foreclosures. Yet we know little about the fate of those who lost their homes. Unlike the 400,000 Oakies made homeless by the Dustbowl who were immortalized by John Steinbeck in the Grapes of Wrath, we have no narrative to capture the human fallout of the foreclosure crisis in the Golden State, let alone elsewhere.

NAM, partnering with ethnic news organizations across California, and with the Washington DC-based Investigative Reporting Workshop is launching an ongoing multi-media project on Thursday, July 21, called FACES OF FORECLOSURE -- REPOSSESSING THE AMERICAN DREAM.

We start this series with a dozen profiles by ethnic media reporters and NAM staff, with photographs by award-winning photographer Joseph Rodriguez and video by Cliff Parker, plus an overview of the California housing meltdown by Ngoc Nguyen. I nvestigative Reporting Workshop editors Kat Aaron and Mary Kane show how the nation's model program for mediation is failing in the country's wealthiest black suburb (Prince George County, Md.) where foreclosures are once again on the rise. IRW's timeline documents how after billions of federal dollars over 15 years, there are fewer homeowners today than in 1995. Translations are available in Spanish, Chinese and Korean. Over the next (tk) months, we will continue to publish portraits and investigative reports as part of the series.