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The rate of home foreclosures climbed in the third quarter of 2009, both nationally and in Rhode Island, as experts say the mortgage crisis is now striking people who had good credit histories, but can no longer pay their bills because they have lost their jobs.

"This started as a real estate mortgage crisis, and now we're getting into the effects of unemployment recession," said Richard H. Godfrey, executive director of Rhode Island Housing, the state agency that deals with mortgages and housing issues.

Numbers recently made public by several entities that track mortgages and foreclosures show that Rhode Island is in worse shape than neighboring Massachusetts and that things are getting worse.

In the first nine months of the year, 5.3 mortgages on single-family houses were foreclosed for every 1,000 such houses in Rhode Island, according to the Warren Group, a Boston real estate consulting firm. In Massachusetts, the rate was less than half that, at 2.4.

Looked at a different way, the middle-class Rhode Island suburb of Warwick has a rate -- 8.4 -- that is higher than a slew of aging Massachusetts factory communities, such as Worcester, 6.4; Fitchburg, 5.9; Lowell, 5.83; Springfield, 5.7, and Fall River, 5.3.

"It doesn't surprise me that we're higher than Massachusetts," Godfrey said. "Our job situation is worse than Massachusetts."

Godfrey also said that the number of suburban communities -- including Warwick, Johnston and Coventry -- in the top-10 foreclosure rates in Rhode Island further underscores the changing nature of the problem with foreclosures.

"We're seeing them dropping in the urban core and increasing each month outside the urban core," he said. "The unemployment is hitting all across the state in lots of different kinds of jobs. Unemployment is not just hitting in the urban areas."

The Mortgage Bankers Association, which compiles the most comprehensive statistics on mortgage loan performance nationwide, also had grim numbers for Rhode Island in the third quarter of the year, the months of July, August and September. The association, which bases its statistic on a nationwide survey of 44 million mortgages serviced by banks, credit union, mortgage companies and other institutions, reported that 10.25 percent of Rhode Island's mortgages are 30 days or more past due. That's the record high since the association began keeping records in 1972, according to spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp.

That delinquency rate climbed from 8.93 percent in the second quarter of this year and from 7.30 percent in the third quarter of last year.

The association also tracks foreclosure rates.

At the end of the third quarter of this year, 4.05 percent of all mortgages in Rhode Island were somewhere in the foreclosure process. That jumped from 3.18 percent in the same quarter last year, but was essentially unchanged from the second quarter this year, when the rate was 4.08 percent, according to the association.

"Job losses continue to increase and drive up delinquencies and foreclosures because mortgages are paid with paychecks, not percentage-point increase in GDP," Jay Brinkmann, the association's chief economist, said in a statement. "The outlook is that delinquency rates and foreclosure rates will continue to worsen before they improve."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Part of The 903, the 330-unit condominium complex marketed by former mayor Vincent Cianci Jr. soon after his release from prison, is headed for the auction block.

The 233 unsold residences, about 70 percent of which are rented, are scheduled to be put up for bid in a mortgagee sale Dec. 17 at 11 a.m.

"We've gotten a fair amount of inquires," said Jeffrey Mann, senior vice president for Paul Saperstein Co. of Holbrook, Mass., which is handling the auction.

Located at 903 Providence Place and near Providence Place mall, the 903 was built five years ago and is billed as the state's largest residential complex.

Its Web site lists 2006 prices ranging from $187,900 for the smallest studio to $462,900 for a unit with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a loft. Monthly condo fees range from $180 to $480.

Paolino Properties, which manages and co-owns the property, referred inquiries about the sale to The Athena Group LLC in New York City, the other owner.

Calls to Athena were not returned Wednesday.

The Web site advertising the auction says the average current monthly rent is $1,330 and the unsold units have a monthly gross income of $225,250.

By Neil Downing
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Providence Journal Co. is studying the possibility of charging a fee for a portion of the news and information it currently provides at no charge on its Web site, projo.com.

Howard G. Sutton, The Journal Co.'s chairman, publisher, president and chief executive officer, said on Wednesday that the company has assembled an internal team of senior managers "to investigate how we might institute a paid/free model for projo.com."

Sutton stressed that no decisions have been made. The team will explore options, then make a detailed recommendation - probably in the first three months of next year. If some sort of fee model were adopted, it might be implemented toward the end of the first quarter, he said.

A number of news organizations - from the Newport Daily News to the Wall Street Journal - charge a fee for at least some of the news and information they provide on their Web sites.

The Journal's study is in the preliminary stages, Sutton said. As a result, a number of details have yet to be fully explored, such as the size of the fee and which news and information would be subject to a fee.

But broadly speaking, "I think it's safe to say that the more detailed news and information regarding events in the state of Rhode Island would most likely go behind the [pay] wall," Sutton said.

"Our initial thinking" is to continue to provide free access to the entire Web site for those who subscribe to The Journal's newspaper seven days a week, charge a reduced fee for those who subscribe to the newspaper on weekends only, and a higher fee for non-subscribers.

Like other newspapers, The Journal is considering charging for some of its online content as a way to help protect sales of its newspapers.

"We're of the opinion that we're losing circulation revenue by providing our journalism free" on projo.com, Sutton said. "We don't want to diminish the breadth and depth of our reporting, so we want to ensure a reasonable cost structure to protect the franchise."

Business people, and many consumers, understand that it costs money for an organization to gather and distribute news and information, he indicated.

CRANSTON, R.I. - Cranston-based Healthcare Automation Inc., which sells software for home medical treatment, has been acquired by Mediware Information Systems Inc. of Lenexa, Kansas, a publicly-traded company that markets systems for managing blood products and medications.

The purchase is part of a $5.5 million deal that includes acquisition of Advantage Reimbursement Inc. of Andover, Mass., which offers medical billing and bill collection services.

Both Advantage and Healthcare, owned by Kenneth Pereira and David Belhumeur, focus on services for the home infusion industry, where companies administer drugs and other services to patients without the need for them to go to the hospital.

Mediware is trying to expand its share of that market. The new deal would increase its provider base to 450 from 150, according to John Van Blaricum, Mediware's vice president for marketing and communications.

Van Blaricum said no layoffs are expected as a result of the acquisitions. Mediware, with revenues of a little over $40 million, has more than 200 employees.

Healthcare Automation and Advantage Reimbursement jointly employ about 85 people, according to Pereira.

Mediware expects to complete the deal before Dec. 15. "It's going to be a positive acquisition for everybody," Van Blaricum said.

By Bruce Landis
Journal staff writer

A welder works Friday morning in the rain on what will be the Clifford Street overpass over Route 95. The highway was closed Thursday night into early Friday morning to start putting the beams, in the background, into place for the overpass. Providence Journal photo / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- State contractors ran a bit late installing a pair of beams for a new bridge across Route 95 Thursday night, but caused no serious traffic problems Friday morning, a Department of Transportation official said.

"There were no backups," said Frank Corrao III, the DOT's deputy chief engineer for construction.

He said that the DOT mistakenly said in its announcements of the highway closing that it would reopen the road by 5 a.m. However, he said, its contract with the prime contractor, Cardi Corp., gives the company until 5:30 to reopen the highway.

He said the northbound side opened at 5:25 and the southbound side at 5:40 and that heavy morning traffic doesn't start until about 6 a.m.

Corrao said that the highway was closed beginning at 11 p.m. and traffic diverted to detours while a pair of cranes set two beams in place. Contractors have to install at least two beams because, after bracing is put in place, they support each other. A single beam could fall over.

The DOT says it will close Route 95 again on Sunday through Tuesday nights for more work. It will start closing lanes at 8 p.m., will all lanes closed at 11 p.m. The highway will reopen by 5:30 a.m., the agency says.

Cardi Corp. is the prime contractor on the bridge, which is part of the DOT's ongoing relocation of a section of Route 195 and reconstruction a section of Route 95. The Clifford Street Bridge will replace the former Friendship Street Bridge and will connect Clifford Street, on the east side of Route 95, with Friendship Street on the west side.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Brown University on Friday unveiled a new supercomputer that is the most powerful machine of its kind in Rhode Island.

The multimillion-dollar IBM computer will be used by scientists at Brown and other educational institutions in Rhode Island to assist research in so-called "grand challenge" problems in medicine, the environment, energy and other complex fields.

"I think it will really spur things and make things go forward very, very fast in ways we never imagined," said Clyde Briant, vice president for research at Brown.

The computer is 50 times more powerful than any machine Brown had before and is equivalent to about 5,000 ordinary desktop computers, said Jan Hesthaven, director of the Center for Computation and Visualization at Brown.

Governor Carcieri attended the ribbon cutting as did Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline.

The governor said the supercomputer will advance research in the state and boost knowledge industries such as biotechnology.

"We need to reposition the economy of this state," he said."We need a different dimension to the economy. Research and innovation will be at the core of that."

The new supercomputer - with a total of 1,440 microprocessors - is based on three IBM iDataPlex systems, equal to the size of six refrigerators; an IBM Cluster 1350; and multiple IBM storage systems running General Parallel File System, supported by IBM Global Services.

These are some highlights of the system:

-- Operates at a peak performance speed of more than 14 teraflops, nearly 50 times faster than what had been available at Brown.

-- Has 390 terabytes of storage capacity and holds 4.5 terabytes of memory, about 70 times more memory than what had been available at Brown.

--Allows parallel programs to be run, that, in aggregate, are 20 times faster than what had been available at Brown. Researchers can now compute a problem that is 20 times larger in the same time.

-- Is six times more energy efficient than what had been available at Brown.

The Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers on Friday yanked the license for half of Yellow Cab's fleet and fined the company $100,000 for rolling back odometers on its cabs.

The rollbacks did not affect the fares paid by customers, but allowed Yellow Cab to keep the taxis on the street after their mandated retirement at 200,000 miles. The allowed the company to lower its costs while carrying passengers in vehicles considered too old for use as cabs.

Yellow Cab, which acknowledged sufficient evidence of its misconduct, also was cited for charging illegal flat rates for fares, rather than mileage-based charges based on the taxi meter, and for operating outside territory of Providence, Cranston and T.F. Green Airport.

Yellow Cab lost its license for six of its 12 cabs and is on five years probation.

Yellow Cab in Rhode Island is actually a consortium of four companies: D&T Cab Inc., White Rock Cab Inc., Doris Cab Inc. and Bobby's Cab Inc.