The housing foreclosure crisis may have moved from the headlines in New York City and across the country, but it is far from over in such places as Brooklyn and Queens.

Both boroughs have recorded some of the highest rates of foreclosures anywhere and two top elected officials, U.S. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, both of whom have strong Caribbean immigrant roots, worry that hundreds if not thousands of home-owners, many of them from the island-nations and coastal states, may lose the roofs over their heads because of ballooning sub-prime mortgage payments and their inability to pay up.

"The foreclosure crisis is threatening far too many homeowners," was the way Clarke, a two-term member of the House of Representatives from the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn, which takes in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope and Crown Heights areas with large West Indian immigrant communities, put it.

"We are not out of troubled territory yet with the foreclosures and the sub-prime mortgages," Clarke told the Carib News. "Many of the folks who received the subprime mortgages are going to see them re-set in many cases and when that happens these balloon payments are going to come into effect. With our economy being as it is, people not receiving raises on their jobs, people actually being laid off, we are nowhere being our of the woods yet. So we are constantly being vigilant around that."

Her comments were in lockstep with the assessment of Brooklyn Congressman Ed Towns (D-District 10), who also said he was deeply worried about the prospects for more foreclosures at a time of a weak economy. Like Clarke, Towns represents thousands of Caribbean immigrants who live in his Congressional district.

Marshall, now in her third and final term as Borough President, shared those concerns.

"The housing foreclosure situation still remains with us despite the efforts in Washington and Albany to do something about it," she said. "It's worrying because homeownership is so very important to people that the mere thought of a foreclosure, losing their largest single investment, frightens people. The sub-prime mortgage situation is at the root of the problem and we have seen it in several areas of Queens. What's also happening in communities is that properties which are boarded up after going into foreclosure are helping to drag down property values. Many prospective buyers are reluctant to go into neighborhoods with boarded up properties and that sad fact isn't helping.

"Because home-ownership is so central to West Indians, many of them are being hit very hard," said the Borough President, the daughter of a Guyanese immigrant. "People from the Caribbean put homeownership high on their list of priorities and so they are caught in this subprime mess. It's a tragedy for everybody, regardless of where you are from."

Congresswoman Clarke, whose parents are from Jamaica, couldn't agree more.

"One of the things Caribbean immigrants pride themselves on is the purchase of a home and, in many cases, these were the individuals who were targeted by the subprime market when in fact many of them were eligible for the prime market," she complained. "So, it has been very challenging in our communities in particular where homeownership is such a treasured asset."

The federal elected official said that the government had acted to encourage banks and other lenders to re-negotiate the terms of mortgage loans to home-buyers when they run into trouble and are finding it difficult to meet their obligations.

"We have provided as many tools as we possibly can and we continue to encourage the different lending institutions to do the loan medications so that when one sees he or she is falling into problems with their mortgages, they can go in and re-negotiate better terms and conditions, given their current status of things," she said. "That's about all we can do."