Tag Archives: foreclosure

We have to take CD’s3 and 4 in 2010

The worst hit district in California is CA-03 way up north. Only 4% of the population is black. The district has the 15th highest foreclosure rate in America, nearly 18,000 families out on the streets, and their representative is one of California’s craziest extremists, Dan Lungren. (As you can see from the photo, he isn’t black either… not by any stretch of the imagination.) Lungren, with ZERO help from the DCCC, came close to defeat in November (he was re-elected with 50% of the vote, while Obama and McCain were tied). Another far right ideologue who was nearly defeated by a political unknown in November is the GOP’s corrupt screwball Ken Calvert in CA-44, the 21st hardest hit district in America (second worst in California), with 16,043. Obama beat McCain in the formerly solid-red Inland Empire district and Calvert’s winning percentage was 52%. The district is 5.5% African-American, so the Republican racist mantra about who gets foreclosed on won’t fly there either.

Other Republicans in similar situations are, in order of how badly their districts are faring, freshman Tom McClintock (CA-04- 15,994 foreclosures), Mary Bono Mack (CA-25- 15,328 foreclosures), Buck McKeon (CA-25- 14,898), David Dreier (CA-26-13,487 foreclosures), and Wally Herger (CA-02- 10,909 foreclosures). They all voted “no” and not one of them coasted to victory in November. Obama won in McKeon’s, Dreier’s and Bono-Mack’s districts. And McClintock’s win was so razor thin that it took weeks of recounts to finally be decided; I suspect a great many of the people who voted for him are having very severe cases of buyers’ remorse.

Maybe the Republicans won’t have to worry though. After all, they have a somewhat off-kilter Michael Steele (not to mention Mark Sanford) doing outreach for them to minority communities. You think this’ll work?

Taking Action, Saving Homes, Starting the Recovery

“No homes for sale!”

“No homes for sale!”

“No homes for sale!”

It took me about 7 seconds to say that chant three times. Six seconds later another family in America entered the foreclosure process.

ACORN members know what that does to a family and to a community. So today, 300 ACORN members took over the Mitchell Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland singing and chanting as they overwhelmed the 20 or so sheriff’s deputies assigned to “protect” auctioneers from selling off foreclosed properties.

50 miles away in Washington, DC, another 120 took over two buildings on the same block where foreclosure auctions were being held.

In Baltimore, Donna Hanks, a foreclosure victim who lost her home a year ago – a home that still sits vacant in the bank’s hands today – led the action and later talked to film crews about the turmoil she is going through. “I’ve moved six times in the last year – and I have a steady, union job. Families that are losing their jobs are even worse off than I am. That’s why I came out today to help working people keep their homes.”

In Washington, ACORN members snuck into one auction disguised as prospective buyers and then joined in the protest as marchers appeared outside the building. One of the building owners, angered that his property was being used to facilitate foreclosures, kicked the auctioneer out and ACORN members proceeded to follow him around refusing to let him sell homes out from under families.

13 seconds goes by pretty fast. We’re talking four families every minute. It is no wonder that ACORN members are stiffening their spines, gritting their teeth, and fighting back in the face of the economic maelstrom engulfing the country. With Treasury Secretary Geithner announcing today the prospect of a $50 billion package of aid that addresses the crisis, we are heartened, but know that we need to take action now to keep hard-hit families in their homes and to keep pressure on our elected leaders to do the right thing.

Fast.

Because it is one family every 13 seconds.

Today’s actions are the continuation of actions that ACORN members have been taking for weeks to keep families in their homes, including a coordinated Day of Action on January 15th, when members in over 25 cities blocked foreclosure actions.

As part of the campaign, ACORN members are in DC today for our annual Legislative and Political Conference talking with their Congressional representatives about the need for immediate action to get Americans back to work and save the homes of working families.

Next week we ratchet up the pressure. On February 19th, ACORN is launching the Home Defenders, a program that links members of local communities with families who have taken the courageous step of refusing to cooperate with the foreclosure process. It responds to the desperate calls for help made by one family every 13 seconds.

It echoes the sentiments of leaders like Toledo, Ohio-area Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur who recently said, “stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don’t leave[.]”

The Home Defenders program is modeled on an ACORN action taken a week ago in Oakland, CA that saved the home of a West Oakland couple on the day of their eviction.

And we are partnering with the folks at Brave New Films in their launch of a new web-based resource for foreclosure victims and those in danger of foreclosure. Called Fighting For Our Homes, this is a way for people to have their own voice and tell their own stories about the foreclosure crisis – stories that show how real people and real neighborhoods are being affected.

If you want to join in the fight to get America back to work and end the foreclosure crisis in this country, you can join the Home Defenders, and sign this petition to President Obama asking for quick action. And visit Fighting For Our Homes to see foreclosure victims speaking for themselves.

Together we can get America back on her feet again.

Refusing To Be Evicted – Keeping Foreclosure Victims In Their Homes

Last week I showcased the plight of Rosa and Juan Rico in Oakland, CA. They had had so many problems working with their lender to get a modification of their loan that they joined with 40 ACORN members and moved themselves into a local branch of the bank in order to force the bank to deal with them.

They are but one of the 2.3 million families that faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008. And they are on the leading edge of a crisis that will claim up to 9 million more by 2013, costing the economy up to $850 billion, if we sit idly by, doing nothing about the root cause of the economic maelstrom that has engulfed our country.

Find out how some families are fighting back on the flip.

ACORN members like the Ricos have made the commitment to save their homes and rebuild their communities through civil disobedience. Today, I am proud to announce that we are launching a program that gives everyone an opportunity to help keep families in their homes and put pressure on our elected officials to address this root cause of the economic collapse.

Called the ACORN Home Defenders, this program links members of local communities with families who have taken the courageous step of refusing to cooperate with the foreclosure process. It responds to the desperate calls for help found in the grim foreclosure statistics and echoes the sentiments of leaders like Toledo, Ohio-area Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur who recently said, “stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don’t leave[.]”

The urgency of this crisis demands immediate action. So the Home Defenders program is rolling out in two stages. The first stage will include eight “Tier 1” metro areas: Baltimore, MD; Contra Costa County, CA; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Oakland, CA; Orlando, FL and Tucson, AZ. Initial trainings for people located in these metro areas will take place during the second week in February, with kick-off events scheduled to occur during the 3rd week of the month.

The second stage will include 16 “Tier 2” metro areas: Albany, NY; Boston, MA; Bridgeport, CT; Broward County, FL; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Durham, NC; Flint, MI; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; Raleigh, NC; San Mateo County, CA; and Wilmington, DE. Trainings and kick-off events will occur a few weeks after those in the Tier 1 cities.

New cities are continuing to join this campaign, so if you do not live near any of the metro areas listed above, you can still participate in actions to save the homes of families in your community as they come on-board. For people who live in areas that will not have local organizers helping drive this program, ACORN is creating Home Defender Tool-Kits that help you fight back against the crisis in your neighborhood.

I urge you to take this step in helping local families fight back against the crisis caused by reckless financiers who made billions in bonuses in equity-stripping schemes designed to set homebuyers up for failure.

By showing that communities are refusing to participate in their own decimation, we will force elected officials to finally shift their emphasis from bailing out Wall Street to bailing out Main Street.

Join with us. The good folks at Change.org have already taken one step by covering the announcement of the Home Defenders. Let’s all join together and keep families in their homes.

Enough is Enough

(Welcome Assemblyman Ted Lieu to Calitics!  And yes, enough is enough. – promoted by David Dayen)

“Enough is Enough”

Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street famously said, “Greed is good . . . Greed is right, greed works.”  Real life Wall Street, however, reminds us that excessive and unregulated greed wrecked havoc in the mortgage industry and took down our economy.  The core cause of the chaos in our financial sector was the unregulated selling of unsuitable and risky subprime home loans that resulted in a massive wave of foreclosures.

During the mortgage boom, industry players became addicted to the drug of high-yield, adjustable rate subprime mortgages that they foisted on borrowers.  Raking in massive quarterly and annual bonuses, corporate executives didn’t care if borrowers could repay the mortgages a few years later.  It was greed on speed, the future be damned, and now all of us are suffering the consequences.  

More in the extended entry….

The collapse of financial giants Lehman Brothers, Ameriquest, IndyMac Bank, and New Century Financial; the fire sales of the venerable Merrill Lynch, the lawsuit-challenged Countrywide, and WaMu and Wachovia; and the existing taxpayer bailouts of AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac would NOT have happened if effective laws were in place to prevent predatory and unsuitable home loan products and practices from occurring in the first place.  

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan contributed to the financial meltdown by taking actions that artificially inflated the housing bubble; promoting risky, adjustable rate mortgages; and worst of all keeping government from effectively regulating the mortgage industry.  In hindsight his decisions were absolutely and categorically wrong in every way possible.  

While we wait for Mr. Greenspan to apologize, his successor, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Paulson have unveiled the largest government intervention in the free market in the history of the world.  Taxpayer bailouts of large corporations do nothing to reform the broken mortgage system.  While we may be forced to do a short-term fix, ultimately what is needed is fundamental reform.  

Several states have passed effective laws to prevent predatory practices and the making of bad loans.  California’s legislature put on Governor’s Schwarzenegger’s desk AB 1830 (Lieu), a comprehensive subprime mortgage reform bill.  This bill, which received bipartisan support, bans predatory subprime loan practices and exotic, overly risky and unsuitable loan products.  Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger catered to a few special interest groups in the mortgage industry and vetoed AB 1830.

Despite Governor Schwarzenegger’s mistake, there is an opportunity nationally for fundamental reform.  If the Bush Administration wants to use your hard-earned money to bail out Wall Street, then taxpayers should demand major industry reforms.  First, industry should agree that they will no longer fight mortgage reforms such as those contained in AB 1830.  Second, industry should agree to fix executive compensation so that the Gordon Geckos of Wall Street are not incentivized to place short-term profits above long-term financial health.  

Third, we need to slow down the number of foreclosures and stabilize home prices or the problems will get even worse.  This can be done by granting bankruptcy judges the ability to modify loans on the borrower’s place of residence, and by following the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s lead of imposing a foreclosure moratorium.

Approximately 1,300 foreclosure filings occur every day in California, the worst in the nation.  By the time you finish reading this article, another foreclosure filing would have occurred.  This is unacceptable and has to stop.  

If we are going to give massive corporate welfare to banks, then taxpayers better get something in return.  It is time to reform the mortgage industry and Wall Street.  Enough is enough.

Assemblymember Ted W. Lieu represents the 53rd Assembly District.  Prior to his elevation to Chair of the Assembly Rules Committee, he was Chair of the Assembly Banking and Finance Committee.

On A Way Forward, Or, Practical “Subprime Crisis” Solutions

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