Chalk up a win for the little guys in the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

A small victory perhaps, maybe a temporary one.

But all in all, a step in the right direction Wednesday by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, due in large part to the aggressive advocacy of a plucky community organization.

It was the Albany Park Community Council and the neighbors it represents who brought to Dart's attention the insane way banks were being allowed to evict innocent tenants whose landlords had lost their properties through mortgage foreclosure proceedings -- even when the tenants had paid their rent and knew nothing of the problems.

Dart announced his office will quit carrying out evictions stemming from mortgage foreclosures until lenders start providing proof they have taken the necessary steps to identify who is living at an address and that those facing eviction have received proper legal notice.

Typical of the mindless lending practices that got the nation into this financial mess in the first place, lenders have been trying to conduct evictions without actually figuring out who lives at the property. That should come as no surprise, I suppose, since it's now apparent they often never even bothered to find out to whom they were lending.

The real heroes here, though, were Diane Limas and Emily Burns from the Albany Park group and the residents of a tidy brick building at 4914-4916 N. Spaulding, in particular Esteban and Maria Cruz, Pedro Ramirez and Alma Aquino.

They were savvy and gutsy enough to stand firm earlier this summer when a real estate agent working for one lender started using illegal bullying tactics to scare off the tenants, putting fliers in their mailboxes that said they had a week to move.

The community group investigated and found that an amazing scam had taken place.

As I first reported to you in June, Romanian businessman Mihail Stancu bought the building, filed paperwork as if he was converting it to condominiums, then took out loans on each unit without actually making any improvements to them. In the process, he cleared more than $1 million before fleeing the country. The tenants knew nothing.