TURNING families out of their homes is the most distressing job on the agenda for Chicago's Cook County sheriff, Tom Dart, and he is refusing to do it any more.

With America's housing and credit crisis showing no sign of easing, Mr Dart announced a moratorium on evictions as it appeared that record numbers of mortgage holders would default on their payments this year.

Actual evictions are set to climb to a record 4500 - almost three times the number of two years ago - in the county which includes Chicago and its suburbs.

Mr Dart said about a third of the families facing eviction were tenants who had continued paying their rent and who were caught between a landlord and their mortgage company.

He said financiers were supposed to identify all residents before an eviction, but in many cases they were leaving the work to the sheriff's department. "These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people," Mr Dart said. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way. On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today.

"It's the most unsettling thing to see a family with all their life's possessions sitting on the kerb."

Cook County encompasses metropolitan Chicago and, with a population of 5.3 million, is one of the biggest counties in the US. Chicago's eviction rate seems likely to remain high for the indefinite future. The sheriff's spokesman, Steve Patterson, said that it took two years from the time a foreclosure notice was filed until action was taken against a mortgage holder.

The sheriff's deputies are dealing increasingly with heated or stressful confrontations. "In the last couple of weeks we have had to call ambulances out twice for people who were very distressed," Mr Patterson said.

"We are getting angrier responses and more volatile responses." The sheriff's office said real estate industry lobbyists had defeated his bid last year to have children and the elderly identified by banks before seeking an eviction.

That would have enabled the most vulnerable residents to be located by social service agencies.