Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs - Michigan

Demonstration at DTE Energy

2009-07-23T22:29:00.004-04:00

Gather at DTE Energy Offices
One Energy Plaza, Near Bagley and Third Ave., Detroit

Friday, July 24, 4:00-5:00 pm

Demand that Governor Granholm and DTE Energy declare a moratorium on utility shutoffs (heat, lights, water)!

Demand that Governor Granholm declare an economic state of emergency!

Moratorium NOW! Coalition Meets With DTE Energy

2009-07-23T22:10:00.002-04:00

Moratorium NOW! Coalition Meets With DTE Energy Representatives to Propose a Freeze on Utility Shut-offs; Demonstration Will Take Place Friday at Headquarters

Two representatives of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-off met with DTE Energy executives on Thursday July 23 to press for a company-imposed halt to service terminations. This demand is being made in light of the worsening economic conditions facing the people of Detroit and the state of Michigan.

DTE representatives did not endorse a moratorium on shut-offs but provided information about existing policies and proposals for new programs aimed at consumers. However, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition maintained that a halt to shut-offs would provide relief to consumers as well as save lives.

Our thoughts and concerns go out to the Detroit family that has loss four love ones as a result of the corporate policies of DTE Energy. Mar'Keisha, DeMarco, DeMonte and Vaughn Reed are no longer with us because of the negligence of a leading profit-making company located downtown.

After DTE Energy officials acknowledged in the newspapers recently that they had received information that could have prevented the shut-off of services for the Vaughn Reed family, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition is demanding that the shut-off of utilities services be halted immediately in order to prevent the further deaths of people in the Detroit metropolitan area.

The Detroit area is experiencing unemployment and foreclosures rates at an astronomical level. Inside the city over 25% of working families have suffered job losses and the consequent economic problems that follow.

The growing unemployment figures, the rising rates of utility shut-offs, the lack of health care, home foreclosures and evictions clearly illustrate that Michigan is in an economic state of emergency. Therefore, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs is demanding that Gov. Granholm officially declare an economic state of emergency and immediately place a halt on all foreclosures, evictions and utility shut-offs throughout the state.

Banking institutions, the auto companies, and insurance firms have, all combined, received trillions of dollars in government handouts to maintain their operations. At the same time, millions of workers are losing their jobs, homes, apartments, health care and pensions every year in the United States.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition is calling for the building of an effective movement to fight the worsening crisis facing working families in this region as well as throughout the country. Please join us in working toward this effort on Friday, July 24 at a demonstration and press conference outside the corporate offices of DTE Energy between 4:00-5:00 pm.

www.moratorium-mi.org

Protest to support family, target DTE's criminal negligence Community members say DTE responsible for the death of four July 16

2009-07-22T22:49:00.000-04:00

By Bryan G. Pfeifer
Detroit

The insatiable greed of DTE Energy has led to yet another criminal
atrocity resulting in the deaths of four African Americans in Detroit
July 16.

According to the July 17 Detroit News, the Reed-Owens’ family had
their electricity cut off by DTE for nonpayment July 15. With serious
medical conditions of various family members including asthma,
neurofibromatosis and bronchitis that needed the use of electric
breathing machines, the family was desperate when their power was cut
off. The Reed-Owens’ then went to their church to borrow a gas powered
generator which they placed in their basement; only hours later four
of the five family members died due to suspected carbon monoxide
poisoning. Marquetta Owens told the News that her partner Vaughn Reed,
and their children Mar’Keisha Reed, 17, DeMarco Owens, 12, and DeMonte
Owens, 6, perished in their home. (www.detnews.com).

Like millions of other families in the United States, the Reed-Owen’s,
through no fault of their own, had fallen victim to unemployment when
Mr. Reed was laid off from an auto parts supplier in January thus
creating many financial hardships for the family including their home
being foreclosed on. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the
U.S. with the official figure at 15.2 percent but it is much higher
particularly in African American and other communities of color.
Foreclosures and evictions in the state are also at depression-level
proportions.

The Reed-Owens tragedy is particularly heart wrenching and outrageous
as the family had filed for bankruptcy protection thus it was illegal
for DTE to shut off their utilities. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court on June
25 sent DTE an electronic notification of the Reed-Owen’s bankruptcy
filing. But DTE didn’t stay the shutoff; instead the corporation
claims the notice was sent to the wrong address-not the home were the
Reed-Owens were residing. And even after a telephone call from Mr.
Reed to DTE on Wednesday, July 15 where he told the company he had
filed for bankruptcy, power wasn’t restored immediately; DTE says it
was going to turn the power back on by the next day but then it was
too late.

Neighbors and family members of the Reed-Owens are outraged and aghast
over DTE’s criminal actions.

“At these times of crisis, what is the problem?” said Pamela Jackson,
Mrs. Owen's cousin who said DTE never should’ve turned off the power.

DTE’s mission: Profits before People

DTE Energy is a monopoly corporation operating throughout the U.S. Its
2008 operating revenues were $9.3 billion and the corporation claims
over $24 billion in assets and $546 in net income according to its
2008 financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC). DTE’s two primary utilities are Detroit Edison Company (Detroit
Edison), an electric utility with 2.2 million customers in Michigan,
and the Michigan Consolidated Gas Company (MichCon), its natural gas
utility with 1.3 million customers. DTE is also making “significant
investments in non-utility asset-intensive businesses.”

DTE’s Board of Directors is crawling with Chrysler, Ford, Comerica
and other corporate thieves including investment “advisors,” and a
former Army General who worked for the Pentagon and the Army’s 1st
Infantry Division. Behind the corporation’s slogans of “making dreams
real,” the reality is that DTE’s top priority is putting profits
before families such as the Reed-Owens.

Granholm: ‘State of Emergency NOW!’

To protest the Owen’s family’s death and other murders and atrocities
committed by DTE and to demand that Michigan governor Jennifer
Granholm declare an immediate State of Emergency in Michigan to
include a moratorium on all foreclosures, evictions, utility shutoffs,
layoffs and plant closings, the Moratorium Now Coalition is having a
press conference and demonstration at DTE headquarters, One Energy
Plaza, in Detroit July 24 beginning at 4:30 p.m. For more
information: www.moratorium-mi.org.

-- 30 --

***************************************************

http://www.dteenergy.com/dteEnergyCompany/investors/corporateGovernance/board/boardDirectors.html

DTE Energy Board of Directors

- Anthony F. Earley, Jr. has been chairman of the board and chief
executive officer since 1998 and was also DTE Energy’s president and
chief operating officer from 1994 – 2004. He joined the company in
1994, and that same year was elected to the board.

- Gerard M. Anderson. has been the president and chief operating
officer of DTE Energy Company since 2005. He also served as the
president from 2004 through 2005 and Executive Vice President from
1997 through 2004. He joined the company in 1993. Anderson was elected
to the board in 2009.

- Lillian Bauder is the retired vice president of Masco Corporation.
She previously served as vice president of corporate affairs and as
the Chairman and President, Masco Corporation Foundation from October
1996 through December 2005. Bauder was elected to the DTE Energy Board
in 1986. (C, N, P)

- W. Frank Fountain is the chairman of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum
Foundation Board of Directors and advisor to Chrysler, LLC. He
previously served as senior vice president of external affairs and
public policy at Chrysler LLC. He joined Chrysler Corp. in 1973 and
held top leadership positions in the company's corporate controller's
office, treasurer's office and government affairs office in
Washington, D.C. He was elected to the DTE Energy Board in 2007. (A,
P)

- Allan D. Gilmour is the retired vice chairman of Ford Motor Company.
He served as vice chairman from 1992 to 1995, and then again from 2002
until his retirement from Ford Motor Company in 2005. He was elected
to the DTE Energy Board in 1995. (C, F, O)

- Frank M. Hennessey has been chairman and chief executive officer of
Hennessey Capital LLC since 2002. He is the former vice chairman and
chief executive officer of MascoTech Inc. He joined the DTE Energy
Board in 2001. (A, O)

- John E. Lobbia is the former chairman and chief executive officer of
DTE Energy. He retired in 1998. He joined the company in 1965 and has
served on the DTE Energy Board since 1988. (F, N)

- Gail J. McGovern is president and chief executive officer of the
American Red Cross. Prior to that, she was a professor at the Harvard
Business School, president of Fidelity Personal Investments and
executive vice president of consumer markets, AT&T. She was elected to
the DTE Energy Board in 2003. (F, P)

- Eugene A. Miller is the retired chairman, president and chief
executive officer, Comerica, Inc. and Comerica Bank. He retired in
2002. Miller has served on the DTE Energy Board since 1989. Mr. Miller
is currently the DTE Energy Board Presiding Director. (C, F, O)

- Mark A. Murray. has been the President, Meijer, Inc. since 2006.
Prior to that he was the President of Grand Valley State University
from 2001 through 2006 and Treasurer for the State of Michigan from
1999 through 2001. He was elected to the board in 2009. (P)

- Charles W. Pryor, Jr. has been Chairman, Urenco Investments, Inc.
since January 2007 and was the president and chief executive officer
of Urenco Investments, Inc., from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he was
the chief executive officer of Utility Services Business Group of
British Nuclear Fuels, plc and the former chief executive officer of
Westinghouse Electric Company. He has served on the DTE Energy Board
since 1999. (F, N)

- Josue Robles, Jr. is the President and CEO of USAA and was
previously the executive vice president, chief financial officer and
corporate treasurer of the USAA since 1994. A retired U.S. Army Major
General, Robles served more than 28 years in the military, including
an assignment as director of the Army budget and Commanding General,
1st Infantry Division, The Big Red One. He was elected to the DTE
Energy Board in 2003.
(A, P)

- Ruth G. Shaw is the former president and CEO of Duke Power Company.
Shaw joined Duke Energy in 1992, and held a number of executive
positions, including president of Duke Energy Foundation, and
president of Duke Nuclear. Prior to joining Duke Power, Shaw served as
president of Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC, and
president of El Centro College in Dallas, TX. Shaw joined the Board in
2008. (N, O)

- James H. Vandenberghe is the former vice chairman, Lear Corporation.
He retired in 2008. He was previously the Chief Financial Officer,
Lear Corporation. He was elected to the DTE Energy Board in 2006. (A,
F, C)

Committee membership: A - Audit, C - Corporate Governance, F -
Finance, N - Nuclear Review, O - Organization and Compensation, P -
Public Responsibility

***************************************************

DTE Energy Key Facts: 2008 Annual Report

Revenues $9.3 billion
Net Income $546 million
Market Cap $4.6 billion
Assets $24.6 billion
Credit Rating BBB-
Employees 10, 471

Demonstration at DTE Energy

2009-07-20T23:08:00.001-04:00

Demand a Moratorium on Utility Shutoffs!
DTE Energy Officies, One Energy Plaza, Near Bagley and Third Ave.
Friday, July 24, 4:00-5:00pm

more info: 313.671.3715 or 313.887.4344

Our thoughts and concerns go out to the Detroit family that has loss four love ones as a result of the corporate policies of DTE Energy. Vaughn, Mar'Keisha DeMarco and DeMonte Reed are no longer with us because of the negligence of a leading profit-making company located downtown.

After DTE Energy officials acknowledged in the newspapers recently that they had received information that could have prevented the shut-off of services for the Vaughn Reed family, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition is demanding that the termination of utilities services be halted immediately in order to prevent the further deaths of people in the Detroit metropolitan area.

The Detroit area is experiencing unemployment and foreclosures rates at an astronomical level. Inside the city over 25% of working families have suffered job losses and the consequent economic problems that follow.

The growing unemployment figures, the rising rates of utility shut-offs, the lack of health care, home foreclosures and evictions clearly illustrate that Michigan is in an economic state of emergency. Therefore, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs is demanding that Gov. Granholm officially declare an economic state of emergency and immediately place a halt on all foreclosures, evictions and utility shut-offs throughout the state.

Banking institutions, the auto companies, and insurance firms have, all combined, received trillions of dollars in government handouts to maintain their operations. At the same time, millions of workers are losing their jobs, homes, apartments, health care and pensions every year in the United States.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition is calling for the building of an effective movement to fight the worsening crisis facing working families in this region as well as throughout the country. Please join us in working toward this effort on Friday, July 24 at a demonstration and press conference outside the corporate officies of DTE Energy between 4:00-5:00pm.

Mortgage Idiocy — Bank Sues Itself Which Denies Charges

2009-07-13T22:17:00.002-04:00

From Dvorak Uncensored:

From the you-can’t-make-this-crap-up-department, unless you’re dealing with mortgages in Florida:

“Due to state foreclosure laws, lenders are obligated to name and notify subordinate lien holders,” said Wells Fargo spokesman Kevin Waetke.

Being a taxpayer-subsidized, too-big-to-fail institution, it’s possible that one of the few ways for Wells Fargo & Co. to know what it is doing is to notify itself with a court filing.

In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.

As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.
[...]
Wells Fargo’s defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client’s own complaint.

“Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property,” the answer reads. “All other allegations of the complaint are denied.”

This is even dumber than the lending practices that led to this foreclosure mess, yet this is what the court record says. I learned about this from “The Consumer Warning Network” Web site, which posted an article by Angie Moreschi titled, “Have The Banks Gone Crazy?”

“We’ve apparently reached the perfect storm for complete and utter idiocy by some banks trying to foreclose on homes,” Moreschi wrote.

McKillop, the condo owner’s attorney, told me he thinks Wells Fargo doesn’t know what it’s doing, and that its lawyers figure it is all billable hours to them.

Detroit Diaries: Standing Up for Justice at The People’s Summit

2009-07-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

By Desiree Cooper

In mid-June, summer finally arrived in Detroit after an endless season of soupy, chilly, Seattle-like weather. Detroiters were out in droves for the Red Bull Air Races and a smooth jazz festival along the bustling Detroit River.

But I didn’t go to the summer festivities. Instead, I went to check out the kick-off of the National People’s Summit [1] and Tent City in downtown’s Grand Circus Park.

National People's Summit [2]The summit, which was held June 15 to 17, and may soon be traveling to a city near you, is a convocation of activists who have watched the bail-out of the financial institutions and the reorganizing of America’s auto industry, while wondering when any of the changes were going to trickle down to the average worker. The situation is especially dire in Michigan, where the African-American unemployment rate is barreling toward 28 percent, the nation’s highest. In April, there were an estimated 16,000 Detroit homes in foreclosure, according to the Detroit Free Press. At 14 percent, Michigan’s foreclosure rate is higher than the 12 percent national average.

“Because Detroit is the manufacturing center of the world, we caught the crisis first,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, 51, one of the spokespeople for the National People’s Summit. “People thought we were doing something wrong in Detroit, but with the economic crisis spreading, they’re starting to see that corrupt economic policies are the problem. With downsizing, outsourcing of American jobs and the over-extension of credit, it’s all starting to unravel.”

The People’s Summit is timed to coincide with a National Business Summit held in Detroit this week, attracting more than 1,000 of America’s corporate leaders to the Motor City to “define America’s future.” The problem, said Azikiwe, was that workers and ordinary citizens weren’t exactly invited. “The people who are meeting to define America’s future are the same people who created this problem,” said Azikiwe. “They haven’t changed their perspective.”

Summit organizers hope that at least their counter demonstrations will cause people to stop and think about how their lives are being affected by global economic policies.

“It’s crazy, what people are willing to accept,” said Ahmina Maxey, 23, who attended the summit as an environmental activist. “When you get out and learn more about the issues, you can’t be contented to sit and do nothing. The economic crisis touches everything from labor to air quality to health care. It’s all interrelated.”

Rocio Valerio, 24, is a Mexican immigrant who came to the United States at age 9. Also an environmental activist, she attended the summit to join in a spirit of collaboration with other concerned Detroiters. “There’s a feeling, energy and connectedness you get when you gather with others for a common cause,” she said.

The crowd grew slowly on Sunday afternoon as Detroit City Council candidate and activist Joan Gist opened the summit with a prayer. She was followed by Latino workers who implored the crowd to focus not upon immigrant labor, but upon the slave-labor policies of corporate America that are exploiting undocumented workers while displacing legal workers.

Listening to the speakers, I felt myself awaken from the numbness that had entombed me after a winter and spring chock full of bad economic news. I started to think that these ordinary people who were calling for fair trade policies, a human-oriented balance between the military budget and the social safety net, an investment in America’s infrastructure, national health care, and the regulation of financial markets knew just as much as the corporate big-wigs about what was good for America. How many homes and jobs must we lose before Americans stop being complacent and insist that their voices be heard?

I asked 67-year-old Willie Kirksey whether he ever felt that protest was futile.

“Once you get sick of protesting, that means you’ve given up,” said the Alabama native, who was a spot welder for Chrysler in better years. “You can’t ever get tired of standing up for justice.”

Desiree Cooper is a contributing author to the anthology Other People’s Skin: Four Novellas. A former columnist with the Detroit Free Press and co-host of public radio’s Weekend America, she is now a freelance writer, BBC correspondent and novelist. You can find her at www.descooper.com [3].

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URLs in this post:

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How Credit Card Companies Make Descending Into Their Version Of Hell Easy

2009-06-27T23:39:00.006-04:00

Click to start

KUDOS

2009-06-20T21:57:00.000-04:00

The People's Summit and Tent City was a great success in terms of organizing and bringing together the people throughout the region and various states to elevate the revolutionary conscience of the masses to stand up (against the powers who have waged an economic war against the working class by their corporations, banks, and government entities that do not have the interest of the people at heart) and to fight back to demand what is rightfully theirs as citizens and workers.

Not only did it present a means of organizing and strategy but it sought to unify people from all stratas of society. It sought to educate, and open the necessary dialogue with which to engage the masses.

The camaraderie and solidarity that was felt throughout the summit was an example of what is possible and necessary to fuel the type of resistance needed to effect a much needed systemic change by planning, organizing, strategizing, unifying, televising, communicating, regulating, and escalating militant protest by key organizations and classes that have been left out of the so called economic recovery and to forge ahead with their plan and list of demands to continue this momentum that resonated during the Summit.

KUDOS to our comrades who camped out in the tents to represent the homeless and to bring to conscience the magnitude and impact of homelessness across the country and the neglect to bail out those who have been swindled out of their livelihood which is their property, their jobs, their health care, which should be a right.

All the speakers were of excellent character and their words, no doubt will resonate to keep the fire burning within to make enough inroads to organize mass participation and to continue the struggle to rectify and to eradicate this crime of globalization against humanity both at home and abroad.

KUDOS, to the Latino participation and education of their struggle with immigrants rights and deportation issues, as they made clear who the enemy and aliens truly are and to set straight the many questions surrounding their oppression. Their struggle is truly our struggle and we must remain bonded to their cause of common liberty and justice for all.

KUDOS to the Labor Unions who bravely and militantly showed that they do have some fight in them as they escalated a spirited demonstration throughout the summit that they will continue to be soldiers of solidarity for the working class people all over the world and be the example of confrontation against the capitalist bosses who exploit their labor for profit.

KUDOS to our press agents who exposed themselves to the media and the demands of the people regardless of the consequences to bring enlightenment to the masses and to send out a message that resistance is not futile and that resistance exists, right here, in Detroit to reverberate across the region and put the matter in check as to whether the people have the power to effect change.

KUDOS to our elected officials like Councilwoman Joanne Watson, Senator Hanson Clarke and Jessie Jackson, for bucking the status quo to join us on common ground to support our initiative and help drive the point that both the masses and the elected officials must do their part to save the people from those who continue to destroy their domestic tranquility and pursuit of happiness, liberty, justice and freedom.

KUDOS to the cooks and many members of various organizations who did the labor in erecting the tent city, cleanup, and logistics that was sooo necessary. Their work was a most necessary component and very much appreciated from the beginning to the end.

KUDOS to our performers of poets, hip hop artists, rock bands and folk singers who didn't think twice but showed up to exploit their talents for a worthy cause voluntarily as the people loved what they saw and heard.

And last but not at all the least, KUDOS, to the FIST Youth Organization members and our WW party members from NY and other states who always have the back of the people because their power and influence brought the energy and fuel necessary to pick up the momentum of the Summit by their intellect and support to the cause from the beginning to the end.

WE SHOULD GIVE OUR SELVES A HAND AND SALUTE OUR COLORS OF SOLIDARITY IN DARING TO CONFRONT THE POWERS THAT BE. I THINK WE TRULY PUSHED THE ENVELOPE AND THE WAY FORWARD IS NOT JUST A VISION, BUT CLEARLY DEFINED OVER THE HORIZON.

COMRADES LETS CONTINUE THE FIGHT!

Peace to You All,
Andrea Egypt

Another Perspective: More Help for "Working People" and The Poor

2009-06-20T21:12:00.000-04:00

Week of 6.19.09
Another Perspective: More Help for "Working People" and The Poor
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Abayomi Azikiwe, spokesperson for Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, talks about what he feels is irresponsible action by the government and corporations in regard to American employment and the poor. Moratorium NOW! held a protest rally—called "The People's Summit"—outside The National Summit, a conference of business CEOs and leaders which took place in Detroit June 15-17.

Over four million people have lost their jobs in the United States since December 2007 and more than two million people have lost their jobs since the beginning of this year. But neither the corporate community nor the American government have been able to respond to the deepening economic crisis by creating jobs for the unemployed and underemployed.

There are numerous factors involved in this apparent inability by multi-national corporations and the government to create jobs and provide other assistance to families suffering from home foreclosures, evictions, lack of health care and the evaporation of their savings and pension funds. Current policy imperatives of the ruling elites in this country favor the profit-making capacity of the financial sector and the most wealthy business people based in America and abroad. This is to the detriment of the interests of most working people and the poor.

The assumption is that if these banks and firms prosper, the benefits will flow downward to the workers in the form of lucrative employment and social benefits. However, this theory has been totally discredited through the lowering of real wages, the rise in joblessness, underemployment and the widening income gap between working people and the rich.

Many corporations have decided to go to areas of the country and the world where they can more freely exploit workers and consequently reap higher profits. When this system faced collapse during the fall of 2008, U.S. taxpayers were forced to bailout the very same financiers, insurance providers and automotive companies who had engineered the crisis. The collapse resulted in the worst loss of financial wealth since the Great Depression.

There must be a restructuring of national priorities in the United States. The $10 trillion in public funds and Federal Reserve-induced liquidity that was utilized to ostensibly prevent a full economic meltdown in 2008 could have easily been invested in government programs to create millions of jobs in the U.S. There could have been a national moratorium on foreclosures that could have allowed people to remain in their homes pending the outcome of the current crisis.

"Those who have guided the economic policy of the country must yield to the needs of the people who are the engine of any real program of reconstruction and renewal."
At the same time, the $700 billion annual defense budget—including the continuing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan—is draining the resources of the country in wars that have no end and that could not possibly be won by a western industrialized nation against peoples of the developing world. These Pentagon resources could be re-allocated to build mass transit systems throughout the country, reopen closed schools, and rehire laid-off educators. There could be a genuine effort to repair the national infrastructure. All of these initiatives could result in the creation of millions of jobs.

What is most important in any plans to create jobs and stimulate economic growth is the empowerment of working people and the poor. This is something that receives a hostile response from the corporate community and the federal government. Nonetheless, if people feel they have no influence in the actual operations of the state and capital, their productivity and general outlook will be severely affected.

If there is no rapid reversal of the massive job losses in the U.S., the long-term implications will be catastrophic. With the need for 25 million jobs for the unemployed and underemployed this year, consumer spending will further decline and more businesses could slide into bankruptcy, resulting in even more unemployment.

Consequently, the epidemic of job losses and home foreclosures will contribute substantially to the erosion of living standards and social stability. Those who have guided the economic policy of the country must yield to the needs of the people who are the engine of any real program of reconstruction and renewal.

Detroit to Host 25,000 Social Activists At U.S. Social Forum in 2010

2009-06-18T21:47:00.000-04:00

Detroit - Organizers of the U.S. Social Forum (USSF), a grassroots gathering of thousands of activists, will announce plans for a five-day event in Detroit 2010 at a kickoff on Monday, June 22. The kick-off event will be held from 6pm-9pm at the Detroit USSF Office, 23 E. Adams St, 4th Floor (near Woodward Avenue, downtown Detroit), in the Central United Methodist Church building.

A "media availability" explaining the Social Forum will be held at 6:30pm. The evening will include music, art displays, cultural performances and food. A detailed presentation to event attendees will take place at about 6:45pm. Musical performances will take place at about 8pm.

The USSF will take place June 22-26, 2010 at Cobo Hall and Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. Other workshops and community art and culture programs will take place across the city. The USSF will convene social movements from across the United States and globally. Organizers are reaching out to young people, people of color, unionists, laid-off and unorganized workers, welfare recipients, veterans, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, freedom fighters, collectives, and many others. Key aims are to create an open space and a process for creating movement convergence and coordination, raise awareness of social justice issues, provide opportunities to share experiences, and discuss strategies that create social change and solutions to the problems facing people across our many struggles, sectors, regions, and diversity.

"Detroit is ground zero for the economic crisis facing millions of people, not only here in Michigan, but across the nation," says Maureen Taylor, a USSF staff organizer and Chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO). "We are really pleased to host this historic event and we're sure that what happens in Detroit will have a huge impact not only here but elsewhere."

Next year's Social Forum in Detroit is expected to draw upwards of 25,000-30,000 activists. It will build upon the first USSF gathering in Atlanta 2007 that drew an estimated 12,000-15,000 people. Already, committees and working groups are meeting in Detroit and around the country to prepare for next year's forum.

"The USSF Detroit 2010 is going to be exciting since it's much more than just a simple conference or a big networking event," states William Copeland, a USSF staff organizer and member of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC). "This is a large scale and unique opportunity to learn from each other's experiences, shed light on social injustices, and build on community efforts to create real change."

USSF Detroit 2010 will also mark the 10 year anniversary of the World Social Forum process and highlight the international connections of the USSF to a broader global process.

Information about the June 22 kick-off event and Detroit Local Committee USSF activities can be obtained by calling: 877-515-USSF or emailing DetroitInfo@USSF2010.org. For more information about the US Social Forum, visit the USSF 2010 website at: www.ussf2010.org

Homeowner dies resisting eviction

2009-05-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

Cops enforce illegal bank foreclosure

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published May 27, 2009 1:55 PM

Mark D. Fussner died May 22 after an hours-long shoot-out with police following the bailiff’s unsuccessful attempt to evict the 44-year-old homeowner. Two 24th District Court officers had come to Fussner’s home on Anne Street, in the working-class downriver Detroit suburb of Allen Park, to carry out a writ of eviction after foreclosure.

Fussner reportedly ordered the bailiffs to leave his property and said he would open fire to defend his home. They left but returned with armed cops determined to carry out the eviction. The bailiffs’ provocation led to the shoot-out.

Fussner was the author of the 2004 book “The Zen of Permanent Weight Loss,” which chronicled his struggle and method of conquering obesity. A short biography of the author on Amazon.com states: “Educated in public schools, Mark designed his first invention at 16 years of age. In 1989 he received an Associate’s [degree] in Science from Henry Ford Community College. Working his way up from the bottom, he has made his career in Design and Project Engineering. ... He has owned and co-owned several businesses.”

After a five-hour stand-off, Fussner was found dead in his basement from a gunshot wound. It is not yet clear if the fatal injury was self-inflicted or if a police bullet killed him. The homeowner had barricaded himself inside his dwelling and exchanged dozens of rounds with cops from at least five cities, including Detroit’s “special response teams” and Michigan State Police. An Allen Park police officer was shot in the arm, leg and stomach early in the stand-off and was released from the hospital the same day. (Detroit News, May 23)

Neighbors and cops reported anywhere from several dozen to hundreds of shots fired by Fussner and police during the incident. People were told to stay in their homes, and schools in the area were put on lock-down. The state police have taken over the investigation, and the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office will perform an autopsy on Fussner.

Moratorium must be enforced

What is missing from the limited stories in the big-business local media is that Fussner’s death and the entire eviction situation should not have happened under the law.

On May 20, two days before the visit from the eviction bailiffs and the ensuing gun battle that ended Fussner’s life, President Barack Obama signed public law no. 111-22, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009. By placing a moratorium on subject foreclosures, the law enhances provisions of the Making Home Affordable Program instituted in March.

The MHAP already requires Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other major lenders–which together hold approximately 75 percent of home mortgages in the U.S. and which have been bailed out with hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars—to work out loan modifications in order to avoid foreclosure. These lenders are to lower at-risk homeowners’ monthly payments—including property taxes and insurance—to no more than 31 percent of gross income.

Some of the 14 banks and lenders included under the program are Bank of America, Chase Home Finance, CitiMortgage, Countrywide, Ocwen and Wells Fargo. The MHAP guidelines apply to any homes that are owner-occupied, including homes that are already in foreclosure. (financialstability.gov)

Section 401 of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act states that it is “the sense of the Congress” that there be a “foreclosure moratorium” in that “mortgage holders, institutions, and mortgage servicers should not initiate a foreclosure proceeding or a foreclosure sale on any homeowner until the foreclosure mitigation provisions” of the Hope for Homeowners program and Obama’s “Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan” have “been implemented and determined to be operational by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Secretary of the Treasury.” (thomas.loc.gov)

Where were the headlines on May 21 in the capitalist-owned press about the just-signed Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and its foreclosure moratorium? There were none or very few.

Jerry Goldberg, a Detroit-based attorney who represents homeowners and renters in foreclosure and eviction cases, told Workers World: “The Register of Deeds records show that Mark Fussner’s mortgage was owned by Chase Bank, which had a duty under federal law to work out a solution that should have prevented the bailiff from coming to his home on May 20 to evict him.

“This eviction should not have happened. Fussner’s death should never have happened. It was entirely preventable except that banks and lenders don’t follow the law until they are forced to.”

It took a protracted struggle by activists around the country to win the new federal moratorium on foreclosures. It will take even more struggle to publicize this law and stop more deaths from occurring, as well as other drastic actions by homeowners who face the life-altering, heart-wrenching process of losing their homes in record numbers to foreclosure and eviction.

E-mail: khamel@workers.org.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Moratorium needed more than ever

2009-05-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

As foreclosures hit new high

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published May 25, 2009 11:05 AM

Home foreclosures soared in April to a record-high rate. One of every 374 homes, or 342,000 homes in the United States, received a foreclosure filing: a notice of default, auction or sale notice, or bank repossession. Filings were up 32 percent from April 2008. (realtytrac.com)

This happened despite predictions by analysts of a lower rate for the month because of high foreclosure activity in March. Rick Sharga, a spokesperson for RealtyTrac, stated: “April was a shocker. ... We had been predicting 3.4 million filings for [all of 2009], but we’ll blow those numbers out of the water.” (cnnmoney.com)

Nevada is the hardest-hit state. One in every 68 housing units received a foreclosure filing in April, more than five times the national average. Filings in the state were up 111 percent from a year ago. In Las Vegas, one in every 56 homes is in foreclosure.

Florida has the second-worst rate in the U.S., with a 37 percent month-to-month increase in foreclosures and a 75 percent increase from last year. In the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area, one in every 57 homes received a foreclosure filing during April. Foreclosure activity in April increased 31 percent from March.

California rounds out the top three states, with one in every 138 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in April. Total foreclosure activity in California was up 42 percent from April 2008.

The six California metro areas of Merced, Modesto, Riverside-San Bernardino, Bakersfield, Vallejo-Fairfield and Stockton are included as having the top 10 highest documented foreclosure rates in the country. Las Vegas is on top, with Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Miami and Orlando, Fla., completing the list.

The top 10 states for foreclosure filings in April accounted for 75 percent of the national total. California had the highest total (96,560), followed by Florida (64,588), Nevada (16,266), Arizona (16,245), Ohio (12,324), Georgia (11,521), Texas (11,314), Michigan (10,830) and Virginia (6,254).

Filings overall were up 32 percent from April 2008 but rose less than 1 percent from March. At the same time, the number of bank repossessions, known as REOs, fell on a monthly and yearly basis, down 11 percent from March.

According to James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, “This suggests that many lenders and servicers are beginning foreclosure proceedings on delinquent loans that had been delayed by legislative and industry moratoria. It’s likely that we’ll see a corresponding spike in REOs as these loans move through the foreclosure process over the next few months.”

Moratorium on foreclosures NOW!

What can stop the crushing home foreclosure crisis in the U.S.? The first thing that should be done by the Obama administration is a declaration of a state of emergency on the national level, or at least in the top 10 states wracked by the disaster.

The federal government easily steps in when natural disasters occur. When a federal disaster area or state of emergency is declared after a tornado, for example, part of the emergency measures include a moratorium on government-backed mortgage foreclosures.

The president is also empowered to take executive measures when a “man”-made catastrophe happens. The same actions should apply to the “foreclosure tsunami” engulfing the U.S. A moratorium on all foreclosures must be put in place immediately to allow homeowners a chance to save their homes.

The quasi-governmental companies referred to as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own half the residential mortgages in the U.S. Both were bailed out by the federal government in 2008 to the tune of at least $400 billion.

Fannie and Freddie, along with other major lenders, which include JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank and Bank of America, are required by federal law as well as by the terms of their bailouts and pursuant to the Making Home Affordable Program, to work out mortgage loan modifications. They are supposed to lower at-risk borrowers’ monthly payments, including property taxes and insurance, to no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s gross income in order to avoid foreclosure.

The South Carolina Supreme Court, on the initiative of Fannie Mae, recently issued a temporary restraining order on all foreclosures of participants in the Making Home Affordable Program, to give homeowners a chance to take advantage of the loan modification provisions.

This moratorium should be extended to every state for all loans covered under the Obama/Treasury plan. The moratorium should include unemployed workers’ loans, as well as those of seniors and disabled people, who are disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis.

Under the federal Making Home Affordable Program, an unemployed worker must verify that he or she will be receiving unemployment benefits for at least nine months in order to count those funds as income for purposes of negotiating loan modifications. Because of this, many unemployed workers are or will be excluded from being able to take advantage of the program. In a state like Michigan, where the unemployment rate is expected to hit 17 percent by the end of the year, this means unemployed workers who have exhausted or are soon to exhaust their unemployment benefits will continue to lose their homes at record rates.

In addition, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and all government agencies have programs or regulations mandating that tenants be offered rental options to stay in properties subject to foreclosure. These programs are routinely being ignored by these government bodies.

In Detroit, for example, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the leading evictors of tenants, many of whom don’t even know that the properties have gone through foreclosure.

There should be an immediate moratorium on evictions of tenants in foreclosed properties owned or backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or HUD.

The twin catastrophes of high unemployment and delinquent home loans mean millions more workers still face losing their homes as the economic crisis continues. It is time for activists to continue fighting for and begin enacting a foreclosure moratorium on the street, in the neighborhoods and at every level of government.

National Summit moves to the General Motors HQ

2009-05-06T23:07:00.001-04:00

Fannie Mae seeks foreclosure freeze only in S.C.

2009-05-06T22:39:00.000-04:00

By Ashley Fletcher Frampton
aframpton@scbiznews.com
Published May 6, 2009, Charleston Regional Business Journal

Mortgage-backer Fannie Mae said it singled out South Carolina for an unusual court-ordered freeze on home foreclosure sales because the state gives local judges the authority to dismiss delayed cases, which other states do not.

Fannie Mae isn’t seeking a similar temporary freeze in other states, said Brian Faith, spokesman for the mortgage company.

“In South Carolina, judges have the discretion to cancel an ongoing foreclosure process if there is a significant delay between the foreclosure judgment date and the actual foreclosure sale,” Faith said in a statement.

If masters-in-equity — the special county judges that usually handle foreclosures in South Carolina — were to dismiss delayed cases, “the process begins anew, which leads to higher costs and losses,” Faith said.

“The court ruling effectively addresses this situation,” he said.

Fannie Mae suspended its foreclosure proceedings in late 2008 and during the first of quarter of 2009 while it reviewed cases for potential workout strategies, Faith said. In some cases, that created significant delays.

At Fannie Mae’s request, the S.C. Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order late Monday afternoon on foreclosure sales for some homes. It targets properties that could be eligible for a mortgage modification program that President Barack Obama’s administration is rolling out. The program offers more affordable mortgage payments to homeowners whose loans are backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and who meet certain other criteria.

Fannie Mae did not want homeowners potentially eligible for the program to lose their homes in foreclosure before they had a chance to participate. The mortgage company estimates that more than 1,000 homes in South Carolina were headed to foreclosure sales this week. It filed the petition for a temporary restraining order on Friday.

Obama announced the Home Affordable Modification Program in February, but details were not outlined until April 6.

Masters-in-equity say they are still sorting through the implications of the S.C. Supreme Court order, which requires lenders seeking foreclosure to submit affidavits by May 15 stating whether loans in default are eligible for the modification program.

Homes not eligible will continue in the foreclosure process, according to the restraining order.

Mortgage Meltdown: Ruling buys troubled homeowners tim

2009-05-06T22:30:00.002-04:00

By KRISTY EPPLEY RUPON - krupon@thestate.com, The State
Wednesday, May. 06, 2009

Homeowners facing foreclosure could get a little extra time to work out a new payment under a ruling Tuesday by the S.C. Supreme Court.

But if borrowers can’t afford a reasonable mortgage payment, their homes still will be headed for the auction block, said Rhonda Marcum, executive director for the Mortgage Bankers Association of the Carolinas.

The court agreed to suspend until May 15 foreclosures on homes in South Carolina whose loan servicer has agreed to participate in a federal modification program. President Barack Obama rolled out a $75 billion mortgage relief plan in February designed to keep up to 9 million Americans out of foreclosure.
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The decision halts legal proceedings on all homes undergoing foreclosure.

South Carolina has an estimated 6,291 homes in some stage of foreclosure, said Rick Sharga, senior vice president for RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service.

It’s unclear how many of the homes would be eligible for the federal restructuring program.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which requested the injunction, had suspended foreclosure proceedings nationwide through March to give lenders a chance to work with homeowners who might qualify for the program.

The request for a ruling in South Carolina was because of an unusual state law.

South Carolina’s temporary suspension is designed to give servicers more time to evaluate homeowners’ circumstances before approving a modification.

“Doing a modification that’s not going to help the consumer doesn’t stop the bleeding; it just slows it down,” Marcum said.

Studies have shown that as many as 50 percent of loans that are modified end up in foreclosure again, she said.

If a homeowner has lost all income and has no prospects for employment, they likely would not be approved for a restructured loan, she said. But if someone loses a job and has a spouse still working, they potentially could cut expenses enough to afford a reduced mortgage payment.

“A payment has to be factored into what the consumer can realistically pay,” Marcum said.

Fannie Mae asked for the injunction in South Carolina, said spokesman Brian Faith, because the state has a rule that allows judges on a county-by-county basis to set aside foreclosure proceedings if too much time passes between a foreclosure judgment and a foreclosure sale.

Judges can make all parties start the process over from the beginning, which costs more for everyone involved, Faith said. He said South Carolina is the only state he is aware of that has this rule so Fannie Mae will not be seeking similar rulings in other states.

Dave Whitener, a real estate lawyer and adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, said he had never heard of judges using that rule and that it doesn’t make logical sense since it would add extra work.

Whitener applauded the Supreme Court for taking the action to suspend foreclosures to give struggling homeowners extra time to work out a modification plan.

“Our Supreme Court is saying, ‘Let’s slow this train down until we make sure whether or not these people can be protected,’” Whitener said. “I think that’s very impressive.”

Reach Rupon at (803) 771-8308.

South Carolina Supreme Court halts thousands of home foreclosure sales

2009-05-06T22:21:00.002-04:00

SC court halts thousands of home foreclosure sales

By MEG KINNARD, The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's highest court on Tuesday temporarily stopped thousands of pending foreclosure sales in the state to give homeowners more time to take advantage of a new federal program to help them refinance mortgages.

The injunction — which mortgage experts said appeared to be the nation's first court-ordered stop for an entire state — prevents judges in South Carolina from finalizing foreclosure sales on properties guaranteed by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or any other mortgage company that has signed on to a federal assistance program.

RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing firm, says the ruling could affect 5,000 South Carolina homes facing foreclosure.

The ruling was in response to a request from a Columbia attorney representing Fannie Mae, who had argued that it was necessary to keep homeowners who might be eligible for federal assistance from being shut out of the process.

"Absent the injunction, mortgagors eligible for relief ... could be denied their right to participate because their property was sold at the foreclosure sale," lawyer Ronald Scott wrote in his three-page motion. "This qualifies as irreparable injury for which the court should provide redress in the form of a temporary injunction."

Fannie Mae said the ruling was necessary because of a South Carolina law meant to ensure that foreclosures sales are conducted in a timely fashion. Under the law, judges can cancel a foreclosure case and start over if the sale is delayed for too long.

The company argues that South Carolina's law gives lenders an incentive to speed up foreclosure cases because of the threat the process could be restarted, which would cost lenders more money.

"This ruling will allow us the flexibility to evaluate problematic mortgages in the state for possible eligibility for the (Obama) Administration's modification program and reduce the overall borrower and company costs associated with the foreclosure process," Fannie Mae said in a statement.

The Obama administration announced a plan in March to provide $75 billion in incentives for the mortgage industry to modify loans to help borrowers avoid foreclosure. Freddie and Fannie also rolled out a refinancing program for homeowners who owe up to 5 percent more than current total value of their home with an application deadline of June 2010.

Scott had asked the court to address about 1,000 South Carolina homes facing foreclosure and backed by Fannie Mae loans. But in her order, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal expanded the stoppage to foreclosures backed either by Fannie or Freddie — together, the government-controlled companies own or guarantee almost 31 million mortgages, more than half of all U.S. home loans — or any other lender who has agreed to participate under the Obama administration's plan.

Toal also set a May 15 deadline for plaintiffs in foreclosure actions to notify other parties if the loan is subject to modification under the federal program. If it is, those foreclosure proceedings will remain on hold. But if not, the sale can go forward.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had suspended foreclosure sales through the end of March to evaluate whether borrowers could qualify for the Obama program.

A spokesman for Freddie Mac, Brad German, said Tuesday the South Carolina ruling was the first he'd heard of in the country by a court with statewide jurisdiction.

"We're not aware of anything like this, anywhere else," German said.

Nationally, the number of homes facing foreclosure grew 24 percent in the first three months of this year from a year earlier. The total in 2008 was 2.3 million households that received foreclosure filings. In South Carolina, more than 13,700 homes are in some stage of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service in Irvine, Calif.

RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist also said the ruling appeared to be a first.

"There have been some piecemeal things, but nothing that broad statewide," Blomquist said.

Associated Press Writers Katrina A. Goggins and Alan Zibel contributed to this report. Zibel contributed from Washington.

On the Net:
* Making Home Affordable program: http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

All out for People’s Summit in Detroit

2009-05-02T22:58:00.000-04:00

Activists to convene at economic ‘ground zero’
All out for People’s Summit in Detroit

By Workers World Detroit bureau
Published Apr 30, 2009 7:28 PM

Organizing for the June 14-17 People’s Summit and Tent City in Detroit is building fast. A planning meeting April 25 was attended by representatives from a broad base of progressive organizations. They included the Autoworkers Caravan, which has been in the forefront of challenging the massive attacks on auto workers’ wages and benefits; the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; disabled activists from Warriors on Wheels; Call ’Em Out; the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization; the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; and the National Lawyers Guild. Two UAW members from Toledo, Ohio, also attended.

The People’s Summit in Grand Circus Park will be an opportunity to link the struggles challenging the war on poor and working people, and to put forward a program for jobs, universal health care and a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, as well as full rights for oppressed nationalities, immigrants, people with disabilities, women and the lesbian/gay/bi and trans communities.

Segments of the summit will be devoted to demonstrations targeting specific struggles such as the massive threats on auto workers. There will be a moratorium on evictions during the People’s Summit as organizers will participate in flying squadrons to aid individuals facing the hated dumpsters and bailiff evictions.

The People’s Summit is a direct challenge to the convening of big-business representatives at the National Business Summit scheduled for June 15-17. That event has been moved from Ford Field to the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center due to lower than expected registrations. More than 40 executives have agreed to speak at this gathering, which is to be co-chaired by Ford Motor Company executive head Bill Ford and Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris. Other participants will include corporate representatives from Conoco-Phillips, General Motors, Chrysler, Humana, Inc., and the presidents of the National Council of Competitiveness, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Exciting developments were announced at the April 25 meeting, including the posting of a new video promoting the People’s Summit on YouTube. Participants discussed logistics and other components of making the four-day event a success. Organizers are out leafleting progressive events leading up to the summit, including May Day activities in Detroit.

The People’s Summit is receiving a solid response nationally from activist organizers who see Detroit as “ground zero” or the “Katrina” of the economic collapse. The call for the summit is posted on numerous progressive list serves and Web sites. The national Bail Out the People Movement and the National Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign are among a growing list of endorsers.

Donations for the People’s Summit are being solicited. Checks or money orders payable to the Moratorium NOW! Coalition/People’s Summit can be sent to 5920 Second Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202. The next organizing meeting will be held on May 9 at 2 p.m. at 2727 Second Ave. in Detroit. Call 313-887-4344 or visit www.moratorium-mi.org for more information.

May 1 March and Rally - Detroit

2009-05-02T01:56:00.005-04:00

WWJ News: May Day March in Detroit drew 15,000 people this year!

Pictures by Alan

5,000 rally in Detroit for immigrant rights

2009-05-01T14:35:00.002-04:00

Photo-BRIAN WIDDIS/Special to the Free Press
A rally for immigration rights flows down Vernor Friday morning, May 1, 2009. The march started at Patton Park and followed Vernor to Clark Park through Detroit's Mexicantown neighborhood.

By Niraj Warikoo
Free Press Staff Writer
from Detroit Free Press, May 1, 2009

Waving Mexican and U.S. flags, thousands of immigrants and their supporters rallied in southwest Detroit today for immigrant rights.

Rally organizers called for comprehensive immigration reform that would offer a path to citizenship for legal and illegal immigrants, and for an end to deportations that they say separate families.

Over the past four years, the number of deportations in Michigan and across the U.S. has sharply increased.

For fiscal year 2008, 7,514 illegal immigrants in Michigan and Ohio were deported, compared to 4,144 in fiscal year 2007, an 81 percent increase. Compared to 2005, when 2,243 illegal immigrants were deported, that’s a 235 percent increase.

The rally started at Patton Park and ended at Clark Park in the heart of the Mexican-American community. Ralliers held up placards that read “Stop the Raids,” “Legalize Hard Work,” and “No Human is Illegal.”

“We need a more humane approach to immigration reform,” said Rosendo Delgado, a co-organizer with Latinos Unidos. This is the fourth annual immigration rally in Detroit. It was smaller compared to previous years when Congress was considering bills that would crack down on illegal immigration.

Detroit police estimated today’s crowd at 5,000 to 7,000.

Jhonatan Ferrer, 19, of Dearborn Heights said many illegal immigrants “live in the shadows of society” and need a path to citizenship so that employers and others can’t take advantage of them. Right now, Ferrer said, “they have no rights.”

Others expressed concerns about deportations and its affect on immigrant communities.

Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government agency that oversees deportations, said the government has “increased strategic enforcement efforts to identity and remove criminal and fugitive aliens.”

Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO: nwarikoo@freepress.com

Hitting the Pause on Foreclosures

2009-04-12T22:40:00.005-04:00

By Valeria Fernández
from Color Lines

Before she was evicted from her own home, Kendra Washington took a walk around her Detroit neighborhood. She found an empty home and decided to squat with her two children. “I refused to get my kids put out on the street,” said the single mother who moved into a vacant Housing and Urban Development house.
After government officials came knocking at Washington’s door, attorney Jerry Goldberg, a long-time civil rights activist, persuaded them in court that it was in the government’s interest to let Washington and her children stay. He argued that Washington had made improvements to the house and so maintained its value. Without her efforts, he explained, the house would have been vandalized.

Washington got to stay.

“In the 30s, there were organized committees all over the country, block by block. The sheriff would come and evict a family. After he left, they moved people back in. The moratorium was won on the streets.”
In the last year, Goldberg and his staff at Moratorium NOW!, a coalition of activists and union and religious leaders, have brought at least 50 cases to courts in Detroit on behalf of homeowners. They have been fighting to save homes literally one house at a time through picketing at the banks and legal action. Some of the people impacted are senior citizens with fixed incomes and also with medical conditions that have drained their savings. The houses have belonged to them for more than 20 years.

“We believe they have a right to a home and we defend their right to stay,” Goldberg said.

Some politicians agree. A new bill introduced in Michigan’s state legislature would create a two-year moratorium—making it the lengthiest moratorium in the nation.

According to Goldberg, in many of his cases, people have been able to stay in their homes because he showed that the foreclosure was violating federal law like the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), which was approved last July. The law requires financial institutions to modify default mortgages when this will result in a greater recovery of their value than a foreclosure.

“We argued that the loan modification would add a greater value to the property than the foreclosure will,” he said.

In the cases of low-income homes insured by the Federal Housing Administration, Goldberg and his team have shown in court that the government hasn’t played by its own rules.

Homeowners in danger of being evicted are supposed to get the chance to stay in the house through a lease agreement. But many homeowners are finding their requests to stay in the home denied, said Goldberg. Instead, the Federal Housing Administration has been paying the mortgage companies the full value of the house after it foreclosed, he added.

They don’t always win in court though.

“When we don’t have good luck through the courts, we have good luck through the streets,” said Goldberg.

On at least six occasions, the coalition has picketed outside homes or banks just before people were about to be evicted. This is often the last resource when the actions can’t be fought in court because there’s no legal basis, Goldberg said.

On one occasion, a 78-year-old woman was able to get a new loan to stay in her home after the group picketed outside the bank Countrywide. The new loan allows her to stay in her home of 42 years.

•••

Washington made payments on her home of a decade for as long as she could after a foot surgery caused her to lose her $40,000 a year job. The lender wasn’t willing to lower her payment on the $150,000 mortgage. As her savings ran out, Washington watched homes in the neighborhood being sold for as little as $500.

Michigan has been hit by a severe economic downturn for the last decade. It has lost half a million, mostly union, industrial jobs in the last five years. The crisis struck Detroit before it did the rest of the nation, and the sub-prime market of predatory lending completed the job. In Detroit, the average medium sales price for a home these days is $6,237, according to data from Multiple Listing Services. One in every 137 homes in Michigan is facing foreclosure.

“Our business is to sell foreclosed homes,” said Carl Williams, chief executive of the Saturn Group. His real state company has sold at least five houses for $1 with buyers paying the realtor’s commission.

“When the properties get evicted, the homes are immediately stripped and vandalized, losing all their value, tearing down the fabric of the community,” said Goldberg.

more

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March and Rally - May 1, 2009

2009-04-02T23:47:00.003-04:00

March and Rally
Friday
May 1, 2009
10 AM

Gather at W. Vernor & Woodmere (Patton Park), Detroit
March down Vernor to Clark Park for outdoor rally at noon

Initiated by Latinos Unidos

Lost your job? Losing your home?

Blame the rich, crooked bankers and mortgage lenders NOT immigrant workers!

read more

DEMAND:

* Jobs at a living Wage
* Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
* Health care for all
* Housing
* Education
* An end to raids and deportations

People’s Summit June 14-17

2009-03-07T22:55:00.005-05:00

By Kris Hamel
Detroit
Published Mar 7, 2009 6:59 AM

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions voted unanimously on Feb. 28 to call a People’s Summit in Detroit from June 14-17. Organizers will begin widespread outreach to garner endorsers and draw other organizations into building for the June activities. These actions will include a march along Woodward Avenue for jobs and housing and a tent city in Grand Circus Park of the foreclosed-upon, jobless, underpaid, homeless and all who struggle for social and economic justice.

The People’s Summit will occur simultaneously with the National Business Summit, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club, taking place at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Millionaire and billionaire capitalists, including the heads of ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Chrysler, Humana Inc., Ascension Health, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, BNSF Railway Co. and PVS Chemicals, will gather at this event June 15-17. The presidents of the National Council on Competitiveness and U.S. Chamber of Commerce will also be attending.

Calling it “a Gathering to Define America’s Future,” the business summit’s Web site states: “Participants will have direct access to ... top business, government and academic leaders and a voice in shaping the outcome of the discussion.” In order to have a voice, however, a registration fee of $1,495 per person is required.

Those who can afford this exorbitant registration fee will be putting their heads together to discuss “innovation and policy ideas in technology, energy, environment and manufacturing.” In other words, they will be strategizing on how to further increase their profits at the expense of the ever-shrinking middle class, the vast working class and the growing millions living in utter poverty.

These business tycoons will gather in a city reeling from rampant foreclosures and evictions, record unemployment, plant closings, mass layoffs, school closings, cutbacks, union busting and other forms of devastation.

President Barack Obama and cabinet members have been invited to this gathering. Will these business tycoons allow Obama’s economic stimulus plan to proceed? Will they create jobs at living wages? Will homeowners have real opportunities to avoid foreclosure? Or will the suffering and misery continue?

Only a mass struggle of those most affected by the capitalist economic crisis will turn the tide. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition organizers note that so far only the banks and mortgage lenders have been bailed out, to the tune of trillions of dollars of workers’ tax money—money sorely needed to rebuild the lives of the people.

Organizers hope that the People’s Summit will attract everyone struggling for social and economic justice, not just in Detroit and Michigan, but on a national level. Everyone involved in any progressive struggle is urged to organize for the June 14-17 event.

Kris Hamel is an organizer for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evicitions. She can be reached at krisdetroit@yahoo.com

Bail Out the People NOT Banks

2009-03-07T01:51:00.000-05:00

Detroiters Launch Campaign for Affordable Water

2009-02-28T19:31:00.002-05:00

OUR WATER, OUR CITY

Let’s make it a law that the City of Detroit must make water affordable and stop shutting off the water of low-income people!

Join our petition campaign
Kick-off gathering: Saturday, March 7
10 a.m.-12 noon
Central United Methodist Church, 4th floor, 23 E. Adams (at Woodward), Detroit

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization
23 E. Adams, 4th Fl.
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 964-0618 www.mwro.org

TeleSUR Video: Crisis of Capitalism - Struggle for a Moratorium on Foreclosures in Detroit

2009-02-26T22:41:00.011-05:00

Michigan Coalition for Human Rights presents Fighting Foreclosures, March 5 , Barth Hall

2009-02-26T22:03:00.003-05:00

There isn't an area of the city, SE Michigan, or the nation that hasn't been impacted by foreclosures, but it has hit hardest in poor areas among African Americans and Hispanics, causing erosion in cities and suburbs alike. Come and learn about the causes of foreclosures, its impact on families, and what is happening locally to begin to stem the tide.

Won't you join us on :

Thursday, March 5th 7 p.m.: "Fighting Foreclosures" ,

Speakers: Vanessa Fluker Esq.
Jerry Goldberg Esq.

"Two of the area's fiercest defenders of victims of predatory lending.

Location: Barth Hall
St Paul's Cathedral, Woodward and Warren, Detroit
Lit, Secure Parking, driveway off Warren, east of Woodward

$5 Donation accepted.

"Produce the Note" Video

2009-02-26T20:43:00.010-05:00

Video describes a tactic that is growing in use and effectiveness. If you are in trouble, try it. If it works, let us know. email: moratorium@moratorium-mi.org

How to use “Produce the Note” in Non-judicial Foreclosure States

The Consumer Warning Network

Neighbors helping neighbors—to break into vacant houses

2009-02-26T20:20:00.003-05:00

By Madeleine Baran , TC Daily Planet

February 14, 2009

Poverty rights activists broke into at least a dozen vacant Minneapolis buildings this week and helped homeless families move in.

“This is the modern underground railroad,” said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, the group organizing the “takeovers.”

This week’s actions are part of a growing national movement to illegally open up thousands of vacant, foreclosed homes to provide housing for the growing number of homeless people. Over 3,000 Minneapolis homes went into foreclosure in 2008. Advocates estimate that over 7,000 Minnesotans are homeless. Most Twin Cities’ homeless shelters have been filled to capacity for months.

On a recent afternoon, organizers planned their next takeover while eating cabbage, rice, sausage, and corn bread prepared by Rosemary, a 59-year-old African American woman facing eviction from her home. Rosemary, who asked that her last name not be used, plans to remain in her house illegally after the March 31 eviction date. In the meantime, she spends her time organizing for tenant’s rights.

“Welcome to the revolution,” Rosemary said, greeting a homeless couple looking for housing.

go to article

What are we waiting for? Let's all do it!

Baltimore Moratorium on Evictions

2009-02-25T21:59:00.009-05:00

Council Members Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry at City Hall Press Conference(billhughes)

City Council members Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry urged support for a law, Council Bill 09-0289, to help Baltimore homeowners avoid foreclosures. Activists Sharon Black and Denise Lowery also spoke at the press conference, in front of City Hall.

Date submitted: 02/24/2009, Baltimore Sun

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

2009-02-25T21:50:00.001-05:00

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Detroit activists stall eviction of Anthony King

2009-02-25T14:40:00.003-05:00

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published Feb 25, 2009 2:40 PM

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions has launched a struggle to keep Anthony King in his home.

News conference and rally in front of
Anthony King’s home, Feb. 18.

WW photos: Alan Pollock

King, age 42, has lived in his Detroit home for 41 years. Now he faces imminent eviction after his home was foreclosed by Wells Fargo Bank and sold at a sheriff’s sale to U.S. Bancorp. Both banks have received billions of dollars in the taxpayer-funded federal bailout of financial institutions.

On Feb. 16, after receiving a ride home from a coalition meeting, King discovered a dumpster in front of his house. “I knew they were coming the next day, that I was on the edge of being thrown out,” King told Workers World.

On Feb. 17, coalition members along with activists from the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Call ’Em Out and the Detroit Green Party gathered at King’s home to prevent the bailiff from carrying out the eviction. When the bailiff’s team arrived in the early afternoon, the dumpster was in front of an empty lot several hundred feet from King’s home. Apparently it had not been secured properly and rolled down the street.

While activists challenged the right of the bailiff to evict King, word came in by cell phone that the writ of restitution (court order to evict) was improperly obtained. The bailiff was forced to back off and King’s eviction was temporarily stopped.

A coalition leaflet stated: “In Wayne County, Sheriff Warren Evans recently ordered a halt to the sheriff’s sales of foreclosed homes. Evans cited a federal law, known as TARP, which states that foreclosures must be minimized and families maintained in their homes. He stated, however, that his office does not have the resources to determine if the banks have followed this federal law. Another law, known as HERA, states that loan modifications should consider the value of the home in foreclosure when determining the modified loan principal. We know that the banks are not following this law.”

A rally on Feb. 18 in front of King’s home brought out dozens of people who want to stop this illegal eviction. Among them were people from King’s neighborhood. “I really appreciate the strong support from my neighbors,” said King.

Like so many Detroiters, King has recently gone through periods of unemployment and underemployment. He works part time for minimum wage at a secondhand retail store but needs a full time job.

“I’m doing the best I can to keep this struggle alive and to pay my utility bills,” said King. “I see all the stripped and vacant homes and it brings tears to my eyes that so many people are being foreclosed and losing their homes.”

The bailiff is expected to return soon to King’s home to enforce the eviction. Activists are on high alert and plan to be there in order to stop the eviction by direct resistance.

To get involved in the struggle to save King’s home and to stop all foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs, call the Moratorium NOW! Coalition at 313-887-4344 or e-mail moratorium@moratorium-mi.org.

Kris Hamel is an organizer in the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. This article also appeared in Workers World Newspaper.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php

Baltimore City Council considers bill to provide 365 days notice of eviction

2009-02-23T21:54:00.003-05:00

Bill introduced to Baltimore City Council with, effectively, a 1-year moratorium on evictions

By Gus G. Sentementes and Liz F. Kay | gus.sentementes@baltsun.com and liz.kay@baltsun.com

9:52 PM EST, February 23, 2009

The Baltimore City Council is considering a plan to slow the foreclosure process in hopes of stemming the tide of evictions, which city housing activists have tried to combat recently with protests and, in at least one case, allegedly illegal measures.

As the Obama administration moves on a national plan to tackle the mortgage crisis, City Council members Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry, both Democrats, have introduced a plan to extend the time between foreclosure and eviction from 14 days to 365 days to encourage lenders to negotiate with owners who are falling behind on loan payments.

The plan appears to have strong initial support on the council -- 11 of 15 members are listed as co-sponsors. Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake and Mayor Sheila Dixon have yet to take a position.

go to article

March On WALL STREET, April 3 & 4

2009-02-23T16:20:00.009-05:00

In Memory of Martin Luther King, Jr: Announcing a NATIONAL

March On WALL STREET

April 3 & 4

Assemble at 1 pm both Friday, April 3 & Saturday, April 4 at the Intersection of Wall & Broad Streets (The Stock Exchange)

Friday APRIL 3 AND Saturday APRIL 4

Bail Out the People
Not the Banks!

Yes, 2 days starting Friday. More people from around the country will join us Saturday – Watch for assembly locations and times.

March on Wall Street on the Anniversary on the day Martin Luther King gave his life fighting for social and economic justice.

Why? Because we must demand that the needs of the people come before the greed of the super rich. Millions are jobless and homeless, and millions more will be living on the streets if the government continues to waste trillions of dollars on saving wealthy bankers instead of saving people.

Dr. King would have been appalled and opposed to the terrible siege of Gaza as well as the continuing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And just as King knew that the struggle for civil rights at home had to also be part of the struggle against war abroad, he understood that no one, regardless of their race would be free until everyone had the right to a decent paying job or an income for those unable to work. Most importantly, King also understood that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The time for suffering in silence has come to an end.

Nothing will change unless our desperation and anger is channeled into a mighty movement that unites and fights. It’s time to march on Wall St. Come to the march, and tell everyone you know to come with you.

Take Back the Land Liberates Another Home

2009-02-23T13:13:00.001-05:00

PLEASE SUPPORT Heroic Bro. Max!
=================

Greetings:

At 12:00 noon today, February 23, Take Back the Land liberated a vacant house in order to move an extended family of 12, including six minors, back into the home they lost to foreclosure on Friday, February 20th. The foreclosure was a result of a fraudulent refinance scheme by a
predatory lender.

The home is located at 849 NW 137th St. in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. As this message is sent, Take Back the Land is assisting the family in their move back into the home.

Take Back the Land identifies vacant government owned and foreclosed homes and moves homeless people into the people-less homes. The organization has been “liberating” foreclosed homes since October 2007, a year after liberating a vacant government owned piece of land and
building the Umoja Village Shantytown, housing homeless individuals until a fire destroyed the community. Take Back the Land has liberated eight (8) homes to date.

After Mary's husband lost his job, the couple and their two teenage children were forced to move back in with her mother. Soon after, the contracting job market forced Mary's adult daughter and fiancee back to the house with their four children, all under 10. The crashing economy ultimately forced 12 relatives, spanning four generations, to cram into
Grandma Carolyn's two bedroom one bath house.

Unbeknownst to the families, almost two years prior, Carolyn fell victim to a scam predatory lender. The salesman convinced her that with a new reverse mortgage she would only be compelled to pay the taxes on the house, significantly reducing her expenses as she entered retirement age. When they started receiving the foreclosure notices, it was too
late, even with almost every adult in the house regaining employment.

The family was evicted from their home on February 20, upon which they called Take Back the Land requesting assistance. Since then, they have been sleeping together in a van and bread truck in the parking lot of a local supermarket. Local homeless shelters are full and not fitted for
families and, therefore, can only split the family between Homestead and Miami and then divide the men and women.

The house itself is in need of repairs and there are at least three other vacant homes on that street and numerous others on adjacent streets. As such, the home is unlikely to be sold or occupied in the next year or even two years and will only contribute to blight and unsafe conditions in the neighborhood. Furthermore, homes vacant for even short periods of time are often vandalized and stripped for valuable parts and fixtures. The vacant house, therefore, does not help the family, the neighborhood or even the bank who owns a structure
rapidly decreasing value.

It is inhumane and immoral to evict a family of 12 human beings, who are left to sleep in a truck, and not even fill the house with anotherfamily, but leave it vacant, potentially for years to come.

Housing is a human right which is threatened by corporate demands to maximize profits. Take Back the Land calls on people of good conscience to defend their communities and fight for the right of human beings to housing, particularly during this economic crisis.

forward,

Max Rameau
takebacktheland.org
takebacktheland@gmail.com

Enforce bailout bills, relieve homeowners

2009-02-18T15:33:00.003-05:00

Michigan sheriff points the way

By Jerry Goldberg

Published Feb 14, 2009 10:37 AM

The Treasury Secretary will soon announce plans for the federal government to essentially take over the failed mortgage industry. The announcement is expected to include a dramatic expansion of the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, under which the U.S. Treasury will either directly control or have a significant interest in most mortgages, either through the creation of a special federal bank for failing loans or with enhanced federal guarantees to back up failing loans.

This is an extension of a policy already in effect. On July 30 of last year, the U.S. government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee at least one-half of all mortgage loans, through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. That laid the groundwork for TARP. In January the government announced that in addition to bailout gifts of $45 billion each to Citigroup and Bank of America, the government will guarantee $300 billion in bad loans for Citigroup and $100 billion in bad loans for Bank of America.

What this means for workers and poor

Both TARP and HERA contain buried language ignored by Congress, the media and the mortgage industry that potentially offers significant protections for homeowners.

For example, 12 USC 5219 in TARP states: “To the extent that the Secretary acquires mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate, including multi-family housing, the Secretary shall implement a plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners and use the authority of the Secretary to encourage the servicers of the underlying mortgages, considering net present value to the taxpayer, to take advantage of ... available programs to minimize foreclosures. In addition, the Secretary may use loan guarantees and credit enhancements to facilitate loan modifications to prevent avoidable foreclosures.”

Section 1403 of HERA amends the federal Truth in Lending Act and places a duty on servicers of residential pooled mortgages to carry out loan modifications or workout plans when the value of the plans would exceed the value to be derived from foreclosing the homes.

These loan modifications mandated by the bailout acts are significant because they force loan servicers to take into account the present value of homes and, especially in the case of HERA, the value of the homes in foreclosure. In almost every part of the country, home values have dropped precipitously, so these laws mandate significant reductions in the principal of the loans. In cities like Detroit, where $150,000 homes are selling for $7,500 after the owners are foreclosed and evicted, these laws virtually mandate turning over the homes to their current owners.

There is no effective mechanism in place, however, for carrying out the provisions embodied in TARP and HERA on behalf of homeowners. It will take a mass struggle to enforce these laws and stop foreclosures.

Sheriff Evans got it right

On Feb. 2 Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans of Detroit, after examining the bailout bills, stopped all sheriff sales in the county. Sheriff sales are the first step in the foreclosure process in Michigan. There were approximately 500 sheriff sales per week in Wayne County.

Sheriff Evans stated, “The sheriff would violate the TARP by conducting mortgage foreclosure sales. ... The sheriff opens himself up to liability by foreclosing mortgages, or assets as they are defined in the TARP Act, that have been bought by the Secretary. The potential liability would arise if the sheriff ... forecloses a mortgage containing ‘troubled assets,’ thereby violating a homeowner’s right to loan modification, especially where the anticipated recovery on the principal outstanding obligation of the mortgage under the modification is likely to be greater than, on a net present value basis, the anticipated recovery on the principal outstanding obligation of the mortgage through foreclosures.” (www.waynecounty.com/sheriff)

Evans said he would not break federal law by continuing to carry out foreclosure sales.

Sheriff Evans got it right. It’s important for activists throughout the country to express their solidarity with his actions, which are under severe attack from the finance industry and the media. Email your support to Evans’ press secretary at jroach@co.wayne.mi.us. Sheriff Evans’ actions set a precedent for the entire country and provide activists with ammunition to demand that local government bodies that carry out foreclosures in their areas immediately cease and desist.

Goldberg is a Detroit attorney and organizer with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions.

Jobless, facing eviction, a Detroiter checks out

2009-02-17T22:14:00.000-05:00

Monday, February 16, 2009

In his despairing leap from his downtown 16th-floor apartment window two weeks ago, Timothy H. Regan, who once worked in finance and human resources for General Motors, ended his life in the shadow of the Renaissance Center.

When a 36th District Court officer opened the apartment door to evict the former clerk on that frigid Jan. 29 morning, he found the living room occupied only by an empty reclining chair and an open window.

The court officer, Cieve Turner, didn't wonder about the window, which had been laboriously unscrewed. He and three other employees closed it, then cleared out the clothing from a walk-in closet in the $956-a-month apartment. As they left the building, they heard sirens.

"Why did he have to put that on my conscience?" Turner wondered later.

Regan's last act, in its suddenness and horror, stamped an exclamation point on a life that might otherwise have ended in an ellipsis, trailing off inexorably in the almost three years since he lost his job. He left behind no wife, no children, no debts, no note or final phone call to either of his two older sisters or his friends. His Detroit friends believed he was moving back to Marine City, his hometown, and gratefully accepted his possessions. On the morning of his death, he even helped move his treadmill to a neighbor's apartment.

His Marine City relatives, including a slew of nieces and nephews who loved their Uncle Tim, thought he was living happily at his Millender Center apartment, enjoying the big city life of baseball games and People Mover rides.

'I was devastated'

"We were supposed to go to a hockey game ... I was devastated. The last time I saw him, he was vibrant and loquacious; that was his personality," said Darby O'Toole, who knew him as a fellow regular at a Detroit brew pub.

Tim Regan was a middle-aged man -- a generous, sweet-faced, well-liked man -- who had no fallback plan when he was terminated by GM in April 2006, and who had too much pride and too few supports to reach for help in the years that followed.

When he became a corporate discard on a much-publicized "Black Tuesday," he couldn't have known how much bleaker the days ahead would be.

For almost three years, he maintained what looked much like his life before -- the one-bedroom Millender Center apartment, the downtown bars where he nurtured friendships, playing darts at the Old Shillelagh, sipping from his numbered mug at the Detroit Beer Co., the acquaintances and friends who laughed with him.

Few of his acquaintances ever heard him complain or express bitterness about the abrupt ending to his career. Friends who would gladly have helped him didn't know how needy he was, as his severance pay, his health benefits and then his 401(k) savings gradually disappeared.

Occasionally, he worked at a friend's machine shop. "Guys have to work," his nephew Kevin Quail said, trying to explain his uncle's sadness. "That's who they are."

But Tim Regan's physical disability -- the odd gait and weakened legs he was born with -- made it difficult for him to get around. A premature baby, he had a mild case of cerebral palsy. That condition had made his work in the RenCen so ideal: He could walk through an elevated tunnel directly from apartment to office, or whip around downtown on the People Mover.

"He didn't really have it in him to go out and look for a job. That just wasn't Tim," said Tia Welser, his sister.

Friends say he was less than two years from qualifying for retirement when he left, at a time when forcing out white-collar workers was still unusual at the Big 3 auto companies. In his human resources job, Regan processed the paperwork of employees being laid off. Then he was one of them.

The disparity between Regan's outward mood and his inward despair came as a shock to many who thought they knew this gentle man, in his baseball cap and with a crooked grin.

"He was always smiling, always happy," said Brian Pittman, a Detroit teacher and one of 30 friends and relatives who gathered to remember him at Regan's favorite bar last week. Pittman, a Millender Center neighbor, spent New Year's Eve with Regan. But the two of them never talked about money or women, both subjects that Regan avoided, often with a smirk and a "whatevvverrr."

In the face of disappointment and loss, he laughed or changed the subject. "He was the kind of person who was competitive. He liked to wait until the last minute. At Christmas, we'd never know if he was going to come or not," said Welser.

The end came after a series of eviction notices and a rap on the door, the knock he was almost surely waiting for. Outside, court officer Turner heard a noise and waited for the door to open. When it didn't, he and his men and an apartment manager walked in.

What remained of Regan's possessions went into a Dumpster downstairs.

He enjoyed independence

The suicide risk for middle-aged men, especially unmarried ones, doubles with unemployment. Augustine Kposowa, a University of California, Riverside, professor, who published a 2001 study on joblessness and suicide, said men over 40 are much more likely to see job loss as an imprint of their own failure.

"For older men it is harder," he said. Being a single man without children already put him at risk; the loss of his job added to it. Finally, the failing economy and waves of others' job losses could have undermined whatever hope and confidence Regan did have.

In the days before his death, less than a week before his 53rd birthday, Regan gave away his furniture, his treadmill, his laptop computer.

"We don't have anything," said Welser. "Not even a wallet or his cell phone."

Despite the many people who believed themselves to be his friends, he spent much of his time alone. His sister never pressed him or insisted on visits, because he so obviously enjoyed his independence.

"He didn't like to be told what to do," said Welser, who is 20 years older.

The gentle little man who walked awkwardly and endeared himself to others with kindness and a crooked grin stayed in character until the very end. He was OK. He was fine. He was perfectly happy.

Only the scream of his death gave him away.

You can reach Laura Berman at (248) 647-7221 or lberman@detnews.com.

Mortgage scams still rampant

2009-02-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

Mortgage scams still rampant By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — After being forcibly evicted in January, Eugene Moore is fighting to recover his home.

His ongoing battle began in 2004 when he and others in his Northend community signed on with a Birmingham, Michigan, based company called Rym Technologies. Most of the participants were not in foreclosure but many, like Moore, were underemployed and had fallen behind on mortgage payments.

Moore says that he was given $1,500 by Rym Tech to participate in the program and was promised comparable sums for each homeowner he brought in to sign up. What he didn’t know was that Rym Tech was perpetrating a mortgage scam now known as "equity stripping." By 2006 Moore had lost all equity in his home through Rym Tech's "Mortgage Reduction" program and was in a court battle to keep possession of it.

Victims of the deception were promised a free and clear house in five years. Rym Tech promised to invest the equity in their homes in "low-risk" ventures, like apartment conversions in New York and China. Those returns would, in theory, cover fees and back mortgage payments.

more

Minnesota People's Bailout Act introduced in legislature

2009-02-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

St. Paul, MN - The Minnesota People’s Bailout legislation was introduced in the Minnesota State Senate and House, Feb. 9. Authored by Senator David J. Tomassoni (D-Chisholm), and Representative David Bly (D-Northfield) the Minnesota People’s Bailout Act is a legislative attempt to protect the interests of low-income and working Minnesotans from the worst effects of the deepening economic crisis in Minnesota and the nation.

Deb Konechne, a leader of the Minnesota People’s Bailout Coalition and a member Welfare Rights Committee said, “The introduction of this legislation is an important step in the effort to protect low-income and working Minnesotans from the ever-growing economic crisis. The act will provide protection from most damaging affects of unemployment, mortgage foreclosures and evictions.”

The bill would extend and expand eligibility for unemployment benefits, create a new public works program to put people to work and put a moratorium on the five-year lifetime limit for public assistance. The act would also prevent the legislature from mandating layoffs of state workers, including workers at the University of Minnesota.

The bill calls for a 2-year moratorium on housing foreclosures. It also would change Minnesota law so that banks and mortgage companies that have foreclosed on rental property be required to honor the existing tenants’ leases.

“Thousands of Minnesota tenants have been made homeless because their landlord was forced into foreclosure. The bank or mortgage company ended the leases of these tenants when reclaiming the building. This is unfair to tenants who, due to no fault of their own, find themselves suddenly homeless,” said Mick Kelly, of the Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout.

“Many of the foreclosed properties in Minneapolis and Saint Paul had supplied affordable rents to low-income Minnesotans. These units must be kept open and available. Banks and mortgage companies that give loans to buyers of these rental properties must accept the responsibility of those landlords. Tenants should not be victimized, first by financially failing landlords and then by the banks and mortgage companies that initiate foreclosures,” said Kelly.

The Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout came together to push for support for the bill in the Minnesota state legislature. The Coalition includes members of AFSCME Local 3800, the Welfare Rights Committee, the Minnesota Tenants Union and others.

“No one in Minnesota should be cold, hungry or homeless as a result of this economic crisis,” said Phyllis Walker, of the Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout and president of AFSCME Local 3800.

“The banks and corporations are getting billions of dollars to survive the economic crisis. Meanwhile, working people are being laid off in massive numbers. The People’s Bailout legislation will take basic steps in the interests of the people of Minnesota,” said Walker. “The Minnesota legislature must show that it represents the people of this state by passing this act and taking other concrete steps to protect Minnesotans from the worst effects of this crisis.”

from fightbacknews

MN Coalition for a People's Bailout

Wayne County's Sheriff Evans Stops sheriff's sales

2009-02-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

Statement from Sheriff Warren Evans
Watch it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv9_TII3bXo

Today I will be stopping all mortgage foreclosure sales in Wayne
County, beginning with the sale that was scheduled for this Wednesday.

I am doing so because its my opinion that recently enacted federal laws
provide protections for homeowners facing foreclosure.

To proceed with sales without assuring that homeowners have been able
to avail themselves of those protections would put me in a position of
violating federal law.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program known as TARP that was approved by
Congress last fall requires the Secretary of the Treasury to implement a
plan to mitigate foreclosures.

That includes encouraging servicers of mortgages to modify loans to
enable homeowners to stay in their homes.

Federal law preempts state law, which means the TARP provision preempts
Michigans foreclosure law.

That, in turn, means foreclosures cannot move forward until efforts to
modify the mortgages of homes covered by TARP have been exhausted.

As a result, I have determined there are sufficient legal grounds for
me and for other sheriffs in Michigan to halt mortgage foreclosure
sales.

I cannot in clear conscience allow any more families to lose their home
through foreclosure sale until Im satisfied they have been afforded
every option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure.

There is no way to immediately determine which of the approximately
300-400 homes that come up for sale each week in Wayne County are
covered by TARP protections and which are not.

As a Constitutional officer & officer of the court, I have both a legal
and moral obligation to make sure that all legal remedies have been
exhausted before a homeowner loses their home.

Since homeowners lose their rights to a property once a foreclosure
sale is complete, the only fair course of action is to halt the
foreclosure sales. As a result, the foreclosure sales that have been
held every Wednesday and Thursday are being discontinued.

My office will work with lenders and with homeowners facing the threat
of foreclosure to make sure that homeowners are being provided every
option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure.

Mortgage modifications could include acquiring a lower interest rate,
forgiveness of past defaulted payments, reduction of the monthly loan
payment or perhaps the lowering of the loan principle, to give just a
few examples.

Any of these modifications could mean the difference between families
keeping their homes or being forced out of them.

After speaking to and meeting with lawyers who represent foreclosed
homeowners and mortgage lenders, I have come to understand that very few
homeowners have been able to avail themselves of this financial life
raft.

In other words, many of the properties that come to the Sheriffs sale
each week likely are covered by the TARP. But we have no way of knowing
which ones. And we have no way of knowing which of those covered by the
TARP actually have been provided any assistance under the program.

As a result, I am halting all foreclosure sales. And I am urging all
Michigan sheriffs to join me in implementing this moratorium on
foreclosure sales.

In doing so, they will assure that Michigan homeowners have every
opportunity to renegotiate their mortgages before they are subjected to
foreclosure proceedings.

MORATORIUM NOW COALITION SUPPORTS WAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF WARREN EVANS’ APPLICATION FOR GOVERNOR GRANHOLM TO DECLARE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES IN WAYNE

2009-01-27T22:38:00.001-05:00

Press Release

MORATORIUM NOW! COALITION TO STOP FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS

23 East Adams, 4th Floor, Detroit, MI 48226

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2009

Contact: 313-319-0870

MORATORIUM NOW! COALITION SUPPORTS WAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF WARREN EVANS’ APPLICATION FOR GOVERNOR GRANHOLM TO DECLARE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES IN WAYNE COUNTY

DENOUNCES GRANHOLM’S REJECTION OF APPLICATION AS LEGALLY INDEFENSIBLE AND AN AFFRONT TO POOR AND WORKING PEOPLE

ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR DEMONSTRATION AT STATE OF STATE ADDRESS,

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2009, 6:00 PM AT THE STATE CAPITOL

The Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions fully supports Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans’ effort in applying to Gov. Jennifer Granholm for a Declaration of a State of Emergency in Wayne County and the imposition of a six-month on Moratorium on Foreclosures in Wayne County to meet the crisis.

Governor Granholm’s summary rejection of this request is an affront to the poor and working people in Wayne County suffering every day from the foreclosure epidemic that is destroying our communities. Last week the Detroit News, citing Realcomp, reported that the median sale prices of homes in Metro Detroit due to foreclosures fell to $57,000 in 2008, a 46.3% decline from 2007’s median sale price of $108,100. In the City of Detroit, the median sale price for homes dropped to an astonishing $7,500. Despite the false pronouncements of “loan modification programs” by many banks and mortgage companies, foreclosures and evictions are continuing unabated in Wayne County. Every day seniors as well as unemployed workers are being thrown out of their homes.

Jerry Goldberg, an attorney who defends individuals facing foreclosure, and a member of the Coalition, stated: “Governor Granholm’s statement that she does not have the legal authority to declare a moratorium is absolutely incorrect. In fact, under Michigan law pursuant to MCL 10.31, the governor is invested by Michigan law with the power to declare a State of Emergency in times of great public crisis either in a particular locale on application of a mayor or Sheriff, or statewide; and to promulgate reasonable rules, orders and regulations ‘necessary to protect life and property or to bring the emergency situation within the affected area under control.’ In Walsh v City of River Rouge, 385 Mich 623 (1971), the Michigan Supreme Court held that the emergency powers to invoke and act on a State of Emergency were exclusive to the governor.

“In Russell v Battle Creek Lumber Co., 265 Mich 649 (1934), the Michigan Supreme Court upheld the emergency moratorium statute, Act No. 98, Pub. Acts 1933, which with subsequent amendments placed a five (5) year Moratorium on foreclosures in Michigan during the 1930’s depression.

“The Michigan Supreme Court adopted the ruling of U.S. Supreme Court in Home Loan & Building Loan Ass’n v Blaisdell, 290 US 398 (1934). In that case, in upholding a Minnesota Moratorium on Foreclosures, the U.S. Supreme Court held that upon a declaration of a State of Emergency and pursuant to a state’s police power during an emergency economic crisis, a moratorium on foreclosures was constitutional, and that a state’s power to protect the health and welfare of the people during crises essentially superseded the contract clause of the constitution. In Makar v Peoples Wayne County Bank of Dearborn, 284 Mich 489 (1938), the Michigan Supreme Court again upheld the constitutionality of the Michigan Moratorium Act, which had been in effect for four years when this case was decided. The Court noted in upholding this Act that one of its purposes was ‘to prevent valuable property from being sold at distress prices occasioned by an economic emergency and to give mortgagors a chance to preserve their equities.’ ”

The Moratorium Now Coalition will be demonstrating in Lansing at the State Capitol on Tuesday February 3, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. when Governor Granholm gives her State of the State address. For transportation information call 313-887-4344. Coalition website is moratorium-mi.org.

Draft Emergency Bail Out the People Program

2009-01-20T23:36:00.002-05:00

Bail Out the
People Movement
FIGHBACK CONFERENCE
Draft Working Paper
Realizing the Fightback—Some Perspective and Plans

The following was adopted at the Jan. 17 Fightback Conference in NYC. It is a work in progress.

Contents
Phase 1: Establishing a fightback program
Phase 2: May Day— a possible turning point in the fightback
Phase 3: March on Washington, D.C. for Jobs
Convening a People’s Assembly
Proposed Campaigns •Mobilizations •Draft Fightback Program
1. Campaigns
A. Organizing the unemployed on a mass basis
B. A People’s Assembly
C. Support and expand Moratorium Now!
D. Solidarity with immigrant workers
E. Recruiting an army of volunteer organizers

Link to Draft Emergency Bail Out the People Program

Housing is a Universal Right - Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2008-12-10T20:27:00.001-05:00

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, part of the International Bill of Rights, was adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 217A (III) of 10 December 1948.

The United States of America refuses to comply with the International Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - no surprise here.

From Wikipedia:
The International Bill of Human Rights is an informal name given to two international treaties and one General Assembly resolution established by the United Nations. It consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) with its two Optional Protocols and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966).1 The two covenants entered into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them.

Cook County Board votes for a 1-year moratorium on home foreclosures in Illinois.

2008-10-25T19:27:00.004-04:00

from http://www.co.cook.il.us/

October 11, 2008

Support President Stroger's Proposal for a One-Year Statewide Moratorium on Home Foreclosures

On September 17, the Cook County Board voted to support President Stroger’s resolution calling for a moratorium on home foreclosures in Illinois. The resolution also empowers Cook County to divest its funds from financial institutions that do not support

County Board Resolution
Read the September 17, 2008 County Board Resolution, supporting the moratorium.
Press Release - September 17, 2008
Link to the press release regarding the proposal and County support.
Online Petition – show your support now online.
Click to sign the online petition in support of the Mortgage Moratorium.
Print Petition – Help collect signatures to support the Mortgage Moratorium.
Download a printable copy of the moratorium petition.

Sept. 25: Bail Out the People - Not the Banks Demo - Detroit

2008-09-23T22:25:00.005-04:00

BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE - NOT THE BANKS!
Not One More Penny for Wall Street!
Demand a Federal Moratorium on Foreclosures NOW!

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008 4:30 PM

Gather at the Spirit of Detroit statue, Woodward and Jefferson, Detroit
March through Financial District

Demand that the first item in any emergency federal legislation be protection for the victims of this crisis, the millions facing foreclosures and millions of others who are seeing their communities destroyed by the foreclosure epidemic brought on by the predatory lending and fraud of the financial industry.

Demand the enactment of an immediate 2 year federal moratorium on all foreclosures. Such a moratorium is mandatory under federal law, which mandates the imposition of a moratorium on foreclosures whenever there is a declaration of a State of Emergency.

During the moratorium, an oversight committee of community representatives, civil rights organizations, unions should review and adjust every mortgage in the country, so people’s house payments reflect the real values of their homes and their ability to pay. Such oversight cannot be left to the bankers or even to federal judges who are often disconnected from the reality facing working people today.

Demand that rather than spending $1 trillion of taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street, that money be used to guarantee people’s needs, for decent jobs, health care, education, etc. It is the decline in wages, massive restructuring that has eliminated millions of decent paying jobs, and spiraling health costs that in large part has brought on this crisis, forcing people to take out unaffordable predatory loans just to survive.

The Moratorium Now! Coalition has been pressing for a statewide moratorium on foreclosures in Michigan and recently held a demonstration in Lansing, MI to support SB 1306, which would put such a moratorium into effect.

The Coalition is also demanding that new Detroit Mayor Kenneth Cockrel declare a State of Emergency in Detroit, the hardest hit city in the country by the foreclosure epidemic with an 18% home vacancy rate, and formerly apply to Governor Granholm to place a moratorium on foreclosures in Detroit pursuant to MCL 10.31

For more information contact 313-319-0870.

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION demanding the Feds implement an
IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS, NOW!

SEPTEMBER 27 International Day of Action

2008-09-23T22:20:00.001-04:00

SEPTEMBER 27
International Day of Action

NO Money for Wall Street & War -
Bail Out the Workers and the Poor!

Anti-war activists need to address the latest phase of the war - the war against working people here!

Foreclose the War - Not People's Homes!
Bail Out People - Not Banks!
Money for Human Needs - Not War and Corporate Greed!

IN NYC:
March and Rally
Saturday SEPT 27
12 noon
Times Sq. - 42nd & 7th Ave.
-and in cities across the U.S.
see http://stopwaroniran.org/ for a list of local actions

Washington wants:

$1 Trillion to bail out mortgage bankers
$3 Trillion on the War in Iraq
$ Billions for War against Iran

We Demand Money for:

Housing
Health Care
Jobs with a Living Wage
Rebuilding the Gulf Coast
Education

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION
demanding the Feds implement an
IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS, NOW!

The same institutions that profit from endless war are now demanding that the entire U.S. Treasury to be placed at their disposal to bailout corrupt banks and mortgage institutions, a declaration of endless war against people at home. Even mainstream media is describing this as the “financial equivalent of the Patriot Act,” which will give the banks and their politicians in Washington a license to seize billions of dollars for the benefit of Wall Street bankers.

Many have speculated that the Bush Administration might launch an “October Surprise” - and it has. This is an outright declaration of war against working people. We’re told there’s no money for health care, education, infrastructure – but in one swoop – $1 trillion has been found to prop up banks and financial institutions. This money has been stolen from working people, who will face massive cuts in every social program.

Saturday's Day of Action was originally called by the Stop War on Iran Campaign to protest the Bush Administration's drive to war against Iran, and the demand "Stop War On Iran" will remain a central theme of the demonstration. In light of recent developments - Washington's declaration of war against working people in order to fund an unprecedented trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street bankers - anti-war activists need to address the latest phase of the war - the war against working people here.

No Corporate Bailout! - We need immediate moratorium on foreclosures; health care, education and housing.
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION demanding the Feds implement an IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS, NOW!

Donate to help with costs for this national day of action at: http://iacenter.org/donate/

For more information, call 212-633-6646

Sept. 17 Lansing Demo: Moratorium NOW!

2008-09-23T22:18:00.008-04:00

Lansing, Mich., protest: ‘Moratorium now! No evictions!’

Published Sep 17, 2008 10:45 PM

WW photos: Cheryl LaBash and Alan Pollock

Streaming onto the state capitol grounds in Lansing on the morning of Sept. 17, hundreds from across the state of Michigan and beyond demanded passage of SB 1306, a bill that would enact a two-year moratorium on foreclosures. Demanding “Moratorium Now!” and “Bail out the people not the banks,” protesters held a spirited march, rally and people’s public hearing detailing both the devastation of foreclosures and the people’s will to keep fighting for a moratorium.

—Bryan G. Pfeifer

Surround the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on Sept. 17

2008-09-13T00:02:00.001-04:00

September 17: Surround the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan!

11:00 a.m., East Steps of the Capitol

Join the Fight for a Moratorium on Foreclosures in Michigan!

Your help is needed!

Send email messages to the members of the Michigan Legislature and the Governor demanding enactment NOW of the 2 year Moratorium at
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/petition.shtml
Donate at http://www.moratorium-mi.org/donate.shtml

Foreclosures and evictions are devastating working families around the country. One in nine homeowners nationwide is either behind in their mortgage payments or their family homes are in foreclosure. Over 72,000 homeowners have lost their homes in the Detroit area alone. The vacant home rate in Detroit is 18 percent, second only to New Orleans.

Michigan has led the nation in foreclosures caused by the predatory sub-prime lending crisis on top of a severe economic downtown. One in every 137 homes in Michigan is in foreclosure. Michigan leads the country in unemployment and poverty.

Since the federal government has now taken over and bailed out the big mortgage firms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at taxpayer expense, it is the government's responsibility to bail out and protect those who need it most -- working people and their families, the elderly and the disabled who are facing foreclosure and eviction!

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions has been in the forefront of a mass struggle to win a moratorium or freeze on foreclosures. It is organizing throughout Michigan demanding passage of SB 1306, a two-year foreclosure moratorium law introduced in the Michigan Legislature by state Sen. Hansen Clarke. SB 1306 is the boldest Moratorium bill currently in front of a state legislature. It would set a precedent for the entire country! And it would provide a strong impetus for people fighting for a moratorium in other states.

The Coalition is organizing a mass demonstration in Lansing, Mich. on September 17, when hundreds of activists and foreclosure victims will surround the State Capitol to demand passage of SB 1306 and stop the foreclosure crisis devastating families and neighborhoods en masse.

See www.moratorium-mi.org for more information.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has already scored important victories in the fight against foreclosures and evictions in Michigan:

· Through a community rally and picket of Bank of America, we successfully stopped the foreclosure of Ruby Curl-Pinkins, a 72-year-old disabled woman, scheduled to be evicted from her home of 35 years by Countrywide.

· We have intervened with direct action to insure that other families facing foreclosure remained in their homes even after bailiffs came to evict them.

· We successfully fought HUD’s policy of violating its own regulations by not allowing continued occupancies of FHA-backed homes by tenants after foreclosure.

· We won an important First Amendment victory that guaranteed the right of anti-foreclosure activists to leaflet and petition at sham “prevent foreclosure forums” organized by Michigan’s pro-business attorney general for the banks and financial interests.

· We have helped sponsor legal challenges that have called into question the right of MERS, the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, to carry out foreclosures. MERS currently is the foreclosing party in tens of thousands of foreclosures in Michigan and millions nationwide.

ACT NOW TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS STRUGGLE!.

What you can do:

Join us at the State Capitol in Lansing, on Sept. 17:
11:00 a.m., East Steps of the Capitol
(see www.moratorium-mi.org)

Send email messages to the members of the Michigan Legislature and the Governor demanding enactment NOW of the 2 year Moratorium at
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/petition.shtml

Donate to help finance buses and vans to bring people facing foreclosure to Lansing on Sept. 17! at
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/donate.shtml

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition needs funds to continue the struggle to win a moratorium on foreclosures in this hard-hit state. Funds are needed to help with printing costs, phone calls, travel costs to get the word out around the state about this vital demonstration. Every donation raised comes from grass-roots donors.
Donate Now at http://www.moratorium-mi.org/donate.shtml.

Moratorium NOW! Coalition
To Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
23 E. Adams, 4th Floor
Detroit, MI 48226
313-887-4344

After Bailout, Senators Ask for a Delay in Foreclosures

2008-09-12T23:57:00.001-04:00

September 12, 2008
After Bailout, Senators Ask for a Delay in Foreclosures
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS, New York Times

WASHINGTON — Four Democratic senators urged the Bush administration on Thursday to stop the nation’s two giant mortgage finance companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, from foreclosing on any homes for at least 90 days and to help troubled borrowers switch into more affordable mortgages.

On Sunday, the government seized control of both government-sponsored mortgage finance companies. The Treasury Department pledged to supply up to $100 billion in fresh capital for each company and prevent them from defaulting on the trillions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities that they either own or have guaranteed.

The four senators — Charles E. Schumer of New York, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Robert Menendez of New Jersey — said the administration should follow the example of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which took over IndyMac Bank in Pasadena, Calif., and imposed a temporary freeze on foreclosures while it tried to modify as many delinquent loans as possible.

The senators described their goal as a temporary “time-out” that would give federal regulators and the newly appointed chiefs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a chance to help defaulting borrowers negotiate new loan terms or refinance into a different mortgage.

more

Statewide demand for foreclosure moratorium builds Target Monroe Senator’s home;statewide march set for Sept. 17

2008-09-11T21:58:00.000-04:00

By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen

MONROE — Dozens of demonstrators descended on the Monroe County courthouse and the home of St. Sen. Randy Richardville (R-Monroe, Washtenaw) Aug. 28 to demand that he immediately convene hearings on S.B. 1306, the two-year moratorium on foreclosures bill

St. Sen. Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit) sponsored the bill, with the co-sponsorship of nine other Senators. The bill has many other prominent supporters as well.

Richardville is chairman of the Senate Banking and Financial Services Committee. Organizers from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, who helped sponsor the demonstration, claim that he has refused to entertain the bill within his committee or bring it to the floor.

“It was a good event, with good energy,” said Dawn Bates of the Monroe County Democratic Party Committee. “People were stopping cars to tell the drivers about the campaign, and we had people walk up to tell us their own stories. One man was living in his car because he had lost his home due to having only a seasonal job.”

Bates said that nobody opened the door when they tried to deliver a letter demanding a hearing to Richardville, but that his uncle came to the scene and called the police. She said the police, however, acknowledged their right to demonstrate.

“We hope to do more demonstrations at his house,” said Bates. “The foreclosure rate in Monroe County increased 42 percent in 2007, with worse figures in Monroe itself. The only thing that Richardville responds to appears to be humiliation.”

Bates added that the city and county of Monroe, among many others across the state, have been hard pressed to provide public services because of the loss of tax income due to foreclosures.

more

Lose your house, lose your vote

2008-09-11T21:54:00.001-04:00

By Eartha Jane Melzer 9/10/08 6:42 AM

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African American voters

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

Cox’s ties to mortgage firms may explain inaction on foreclosures

2008-09-07T01:21:00.002-04:00

By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT —Evidence is surfacing that home loan institutions have, based on demographic studies, steered minority homeowners into high-risk subprime mortgages. That opens the door to possible prosecution of civil rights violations in addition to the abuse of fair lending laws.

With calls increasing for state attorney generals to sue guilty lenders, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox may be compromised. His list of campaign contributors includes a number of mortgage interests.

Cox has refrained from taking an assertive position towards lending institutions despite studies showing racial steering into unnecessary subprime loans.

“Cox is holding forums to try and help mortgage fraud victims with many of the same companies that he should be investigating for causing the problem in the first place,” Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party said in a recent press release. “Helping victims is fine, but Cox does nothing to go after the wrongdoers.”

Cox is Republican.

Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network says that campaign contributions do have a direct affect on the policies public officials will pursue.

When asked about Cox’s ties to the mortgage industry, Robinson told the Michigan Citizen that, “it certainly invites the question of the possibility” of the relationship being a policy factor.

According to campaign finance reports, since first running for office in 2002, Cox has received contributions of over $126,000 from political action committees (PAC) tied to banking institutions such as Comerica Bank, Citigroup and Standard Federal.

The Michigan Bankers Association has donated to the Cox campaign on numerous occasions. $29,600 of those contributions have come from David and Kathleen Trott of the law firm Trott and Trott, P.C. Their practice specializes in representation of mortgage servicers, banks, and credit unions in residential mortgage foreclosures.

“It becomes particularly concerning when dealing with an office whose focus is justice,” Robinson said.

A November 4th article in The Nation indicates that, according to federal loan and census records for 2006, two Detroit area neighborhoods with similar median incomes showed vastly different quantities of high-interest home loans.

Homeowners in the primarily Black Detroit neighborhood, with a median income of $49,000, received subprime loans at a rate of 70% in the mostly white Plymouth neighborhood, with a median income of $51,000, subprime loans reached only 17%.

In addition a widely-sited, comprehensive report on the affects of the current foreclosure crisis published by United for A Fair Economy estimates that the total loss of wealth for people of color to be between $164 and $213 billion because of subprime loans taken during the past eight years.

The Michigan Citizen spoke with Jason Moon, spokeperson for the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Services (OFIS), which is the department designated with regulation of mortgage fraud. He said that from 2006 through November 2007, three cases of mortgage fraud were presented to the Attorney General’s Office and several more since then. None the cases have been prosecuted.

“It’s up to the Attorney General’s office to prosecute these cases or send them to local prosecutors,” Moon said.

The recent appointment by Governor Jennifer Granholm of Commissioner Ken Ross to head the OFIS may be indicative of a new direction by the state.

Moon says that Ross has made it a priority to send more cases as criminal referrals to the Attorney General.

“We want to help people stay in their homes and work with people to accomplish that goal.”

Moon also pointed to several legislative initiatives currently in committee, including a proposed supplemental appropriation of $1.4 million by the House Appropriation Committee. The money would allow OFIS to hire 34 more mortgage regulators to help prevent fraud.

According to a November article in the Detroit News, there are currently no more than 12 examiners to monitor 2,800 licensed mortgage companies.

Calls to the office of Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox were never returned.

The despised Trott & Trott - McCain's Landlord

2008-09-07T01:11:00.004-04:00

McCain’s landlord

By Jefferson Morley 9/5/08 6:25 AM

Entrance to Trott Center, home of the McCain-Palin campaign in Farmington Hills, Mich. (Photo: Alexa Stanard)

The headquarters of the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket in Michigan, located at 31330 Northwestern Highway in Farmington Hills in suburban Detroit, is owned by a law firm called Trott & Trott that specializes in housing foreclosures.

As the Republican nominee makes his first post-convention appearance in Sterling Heights, Mich., today, the livelihood of his local host has not yet attracted much notice. But if the Trott name rings no bells among the national press corps, it is all too familiar to the record number of Michigan residents facing foreclosures on their homes in this election year.

McCain’s landlord boasts of providing “comprehensive foreclosure, bankruptcy litigation and related services for the real estate finance industry.”

That means that as the Michigan housing market goes south, the Trott & Trott firm is prospering. The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, is also donating generously to the McCain campaign.

Trott and his wife Kathleen have given $23,000 to the McCain campaign in 2007-08, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. They gave another $52,400 to the Republican National Committee in May of this year.

Click here for the rest of the article

Randy & Me

2008-09-03T21:31:00.001-04:00

Rubie Curl-Pinkins Victory Celebration

2008-08-24T00:44:00.002-04:00

video by Alan

Foreclosed! The Crosby Mint Farms

2008-08-21T21:24:00.001-04:00

September 17: Surround the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan!

2008-08-15T19:21:00.000-04:00

Sept 17: Stop Foreclosures and Evictions in Michigan!

Moratorium NOW! Coalition to
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions

September 17: Surround the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan!

11:00 a.m., East Steps of the Capitol

Join the Fight for a Moratorium on Foreclosures in Michigan!

Your help is needed!

See www.moratorium-mi.org for more information.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has already scored important victories in the fight against foreclosures and evictions in Michigan:

· We have intervened with direct action to insure that other families facing foreclosure remained in their homes even after bailiffs came to evict them.

· We successfully fought HUD’s policy of violating its own regulations by not allowing continued occupancies of FHA-backed homes by tenants after foreclosure.

ACT NOW TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS STRUGGLE!.

What you can do:

Join us at the State Capitol in Lansing, on Sept. 17:
11:00 a.m., East Steps of the Capitol
(see www.moratorium-mi.org)

Send email messages to the members of the Michigan Legislature and the Governor demanding enactment NOW of the 2 year Moratorium at
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/petition.shtml

Donate to help finance buses and vans to bring people facing foreclosure to Lansing on Sept. 17! at
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/donate.shtml

Moratorium NOW! Coalition
To Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
23 E. Adams, 4th Floor
Detroit, MI 48226
313-887-4344

Labor Day Outreach!

2008-08-13T08:48:00.003-04:00

A lot of outdoor gatherings are scheduled around Michigan on the Labor Day
weekend (Aug. 30, 31 and Sept. 1)

The UP organizers will be at and in the Mackinac Bridge walk with Freeze
the Foreclosures - Moratorium NOW! literature.

Detroit is silkscreening signs. More t-shirts are being ordered. If you
need signs for your area or help with a banner, let the Detroit office
know (but please don't wait until the last minute ... )

Are you planning any outreach that weekend? Let us know so we can share it.

08Aug12: Outreach to Churches

2008-08-13T08:42:00.001-04:00

The day after the first staff meeting significant outreach started to
churches. Direct contact with several pastors was made by phone -
messages were left for others. One leaflet drop off was coordinated with
the Moratorium NOW! office and another church agreed to put the
information in the bulletin.

Pointers to keep in mind - one Detroit pastors told the Moratorium
organizer that he was not aware of anyone affected! When she rightly
pointed out that people are often too ashamed to admit they are losing
their homes, he told her she was probably correct. The pastor of a
downtown church stated most of his parishioners are renters who suffer
high rent increases. (Although not covered in SB 1306, it is related to
the increasing cost of credit and mortgages - even commercial mortgages
- but in Detroit is related to the gentrification of downtown and the
conversion of buildings to high price condos - no seniors trying to
survive on social security welcome!)

Lists of organizations and individuals are coming in! The mailing is
almost ready to go!

Detroit News: Foreclosure fallout: Houses go for a $1

2008-08-13T07:05:00.001-04:00

Foreclosure fallout: Houses go for a $1
Ron French / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald's, a used VHS
movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit.

The fact that a home on the city's east side was listed for $1 recently
shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of
America's poorest big cities.

And it still took 19 days to find a buyer.

The sale price of the home may be an anomaly, but illustrates both the
depths of the foreclosure crisis in Detroit and the rapid scuttling of
vacant homes in some of the city's impoverished neighborhoods.

The home, at 8111 Traverse Street, a few blocks from Detroit City
Airport, was the nicest house on the block when it sold for $65,000 in
November 2006, said neighbor Carl Upshaw. But the home was foreclosed
last summer, and it wasn't long until "the vultures closed in," Upshaw
said. "The siding was the first to go. Then they took the fence. Then
they broke in and took everything else."

The company hired to manage the home and sell it, the Bearing Group,
boarded up the home only to find the boards stolen and used to board up
another abandoned home nearby.

Scrappers tore out the copper plumbing, the furnace and the light
fixtures, taking everything of value, including the kitchen sink.

"It about doesn't make sense to put the family out," Upshaw said. "Once
people are gone, you're gonna lose the house in this neighborhood."

Tuesday, the home was wide open. Doors leading into the kitchen and the
basement were missing, and the front windows had been smashed. Weeds
grew chest-high, and charred remains marked a spot where the garage
recently burned.

Put on the market in January for $1,100, the house had no lookers other
than the squatters who sometimes stayed there at night. Facing $4,000 in
back taxes and a large unpaid water bill, the bank that owned the
property lowered the price to $1.
$1 sale to cost bank $10,000

While it's not unusual for $1 to be exchanged when property is
transferred for legal reasons, listing a home in the Multiple Listing
Service for $1 was surprising and unsettling to Kent Colpaert, the
listing real estate agent for the property.

"I've never seen a home listed for $1," Colpaert said.

"But it's been hit hard: It's just a shell."

On Tuesday, Realtor.com listed one other single-family home, one duplex
and one empty lot at $1 in Detroit.

Dollar property sales are the financial hangover from the foreclosure
crisis, said Anthony Viola of Realty Corp. of America in Cleveland.

Lenders that made loans to unqualified buyers during the height of the
subprime market now find themselves the owners of whole neighborhoods of
vacant, deteriorating homes.

"No one has much sympathy for these banks that made subprime loans,"
Viola said. "And in some cities like Cleveland, judges aren't letting
them sit on the properties -- they're ordering them to tear them down or
sell them."

So desperate was the bank owner of 8111 Traverse Street to unload the
property that it agreed to pay $2,500 in sales commission and another
$1,000 bonus for closing the $1 sale; the bank also will pay $500 of the
buyer's closing costs. Throw in back taxes and a water bill, and
unloading the house will cost the bank about $10,000.

"It doesn't make sense in some neighborhoods to keep paying costs and
costs," Colpaert said. "It can make more financial sense to give it away."
Buyer calls it an investment

Colpaert declined to provide the name of the prospective purchaser,
because the deal had not been through closing. The agent did say that
the buyer agreed to pay the full list price of $1, and planned to pay cash.

The buyer, a local woman, considers the home to be an investment
property and will not live there, Colpaert said, though exactly how soon
the buyer can expect to recoup her four-quarter investment is
questionable. Replacing the guts of the house will costs tens of
thousands of dollars, and the owner will have trouble keeping scrappers
from stealing the improvements as quickly as they're installed. Home
demolition costs about $5,000, Colpaert said.

Meanwhile, the new owner will owe $3,900 in property taxes in 2009 on
her dollar purchase unless she challenges the tax assessment.

While selling a home for the amount of change most people could find
between their couch cushions is unusual, some abandoned homes in Detroit
sell for $100; vacant lots can be purchased for $300.

"My 14-year-old son could buy a block of Detroit property," said Ann
Laciura, senior servicing specialist for the Bearing Group.

You can reach Ron French at (313) 222-2175 or rfrench@detnews.com.

Find this article at:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080813/METRO/808130360

Upcoming Week of August 11 - August 18 - How you can help in the Detroit area

2008-08-12T04:24:00.000-04:00

Monday "Stop the Foreclosures" Staff meetings are held at the Moratorium
NOW! Coalition office 23 E. Adams at Grand Circus Park in downtown Detroit.

Special tabling and distribution scheduled at the African World Festival
- August 15, 16 and 17.
Table hours: Friday and Saturday from 5 pm to 8 pm and Sunday from 3 pm
to 6 pm
Table location: Jefferson and Woodward by the Coleman A. Young Municipal
Building (formerly City County Building)
Stop by the table, sign the petition, pick up literature, get a t-shirt,
help out for awhile!

The Fight for SB 1306 in Michigan

2008-08-11T12:56:00.000-04:00

The three articles that appeared just before this post show that the
economic crisis is not slowing down, but rippling wider. Fighting for
Michigan Senate Bill 1306 is an important step to stop that wave before
each of us and our neighborhoods are all engulfed while the banks are
bailed out.

No one can fight this battle for you - if we stand together we can win!
Come to Lansing, Michigan on Sept. 17. Volunteer to take leaflets to
your workplace, church or block association. Become an organizer.

For more information and Michigan organizing centers go to:
www.moratorium-mi.org

WSJ: Students Face Hit As Private Lending Dries Up

2008-08-11T12:43:00.001-04:00

The Wall Street Journal

August 11, 2008

PAGE ONE

Students Face Hit
As Private Lending Dries Up
By ROBERT TOMSHO
August 11, 2008; Page A1

A retreat by private-sector lenders from the market for education loans
is threatening to keep thousands of students out of college in the
coming academic year.

About 10% of the nine million student borrowers in the U.S. seek such
private loans, which supplement the limited amounts available from
government-aid programs. Over the past decade, as government grants and
loans have failed to keep pace with rising tuitions, private-loan
borrowing has increased more than tenfold to $17.1 billion annually.

More than two dozen lenders, including Bank of America Corp. and
Citigroup Inc., have stopped or curtailed private lending to students
since the beginning of the last school year. On Tuesday, Wachovia Corp.
joined their ranks. Ferris Morrison, a Wachovia spokeswoman, said the
bank decided to stop making private loans to undergraduates after
"evaluating our organization in the current environment." Lenders have
cut back on making such loans as investors have shunned the securities
they rely upon to raise lending capital.
[chart]

The nonprofit Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, or MEFA,
said late last month that it couldn't raise the capital for private
loans, forcing some 32,000 would-be borrowers to scramble to find funds
elsewhere. Earlier this year, the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan
Authority, another nonprofit lender, stopped making certain private loans.

Some of the hardest-hit students are at for-profit schools that offer
training in everything from nursing to computer programming. These
schools often cater to low-income students who tend to have lower credit
scores and higher loan-default rates.

After multiple rejections from lenders, Katrina Cardin, a single mother
of two from Mount Horeb, Wisc., recently landed a $3,000 loan to pay off
her overdue nursing-school bills from the summer term. But she's still
not sure how she will pay for fall classes at Southwest Wisconsin
Technical College, in Fennimore, Wisc. "I was approved for a loan with
no problem last year," she says.

Most colleges say it's still too early to say how many students could
fail to come up with the money to cover their costs. Bills for the first
semester are typically due this month. Because the government shored up
the federal student-loan program in May, which accounts for about four
out of five student loans, educators don't believe the problems on the
private lending side will lead to a collapse of the broader market. But
for many students, the private-sector turmoil could lead to delays,
disruptions and fewer choices on where to attend.

Tighter Standards

Students are being hit on another front: Many banks that are still
making private loans are tightening their standards. Among other
factors, lenders consider a loan applicant's so-called FICO score, a
measure of creditworthiness used to rate consumers on a 300-to-850 point
scale. Some student borrowers say that, in recent years, they have
qualified for private loans with FICO scores in the 600-point range.
This year, some lenders have raised that threshold by as much as 100
points, according to financial-aid administrators and industry analysts.
The hike is especially troubling for younger college students who
haven't had a chance to build up a good credit score.

This could leave as many as 200,000 students ineligible for private
loans this fall, says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Finaid.org, a Web
site devoted to financial aid. Mr. Kantrowitz came to this estimate by
using publicly available information to track securities backed by
student loans. He then counted the number of those borrowers with credit
scores that don't meet the tougher standards. With only a few weeks
before classes begin, "students are definitely having more trouble
finding the lenders," says Mr. Kantrowitz, who has testified before
Congress on aid issues.

Education for All

Easier access to student loans has helped advance the American dream of
college education for all. More than two-thirds of high-school graduates
went right to college in 2006, up from fewer than half in 1980,
according to the Department of Education's latest tally. Another recent
federal report indicated that 44% of all adults were taking classes of
some kind, up from 33% in 1991. But that trend, like the notion that
everyone should own their own home, is under pressure now.

With policymakers and corporate leaders saying post-secondary education
is pivotal to maintaining a competitive work force, the lending squeeze
could spawn election-year pressure for the government to intervene in
the same way it has with the troubled housing market.

Credit rater Standard & Poor's last month warned that problems with
private student loans could be widespread this year, causing some
students to drop out of college. Its report added that if the economic
downturn leads more students and families to default on their loans, the
availability of such funds may dwindle further. "We think it could
affect not just poor-credit-risk borrowers but the middle class and the
upper middle class," says credit analyst Mary Peloquin-Dodd, a co-author
of the report.

Keiser University, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with 13,000 students
on 13 campuses, says only about 25% of its applicants are getting
approved for private loans these days, down from about 80% a year ago.
"And from what I can see, it's going to get worse, not better," says
founder Arthur Keiser, whose school has begun making loans on its own.

More than 50 students a year used to be approved for private loans at
the International Academy, a cosmetology school in Daytona Beach, Fla.
So far this year, administrators say there have only been three, and the
recipients face interest rates as high as 23%, more than double the
typical rates of a year ago. As a result, the school, which charges
$15,600 in tuition for its cosmetology program, says it expects some
won't be able to enroll.

Those turned down for loans include Patricia Bannister, a 22-year-old
who hoped to become a hairdresser and use the income to eventually
pursue a teaching degree. School officials say Ms. Bannister fits the
credit profile of loan applicants who have been approved in the past,
but this year she was rejected by three lenders with little explanation.

"People are constantly telling you to go to school and, all of a sudden,
when you try to get in you can't get anywhere," says Ms. Bannister, who
now works as a program director at a karate school and has put off plans
to go to school.

A Financial Lifeline

Critics of private education lending, including student-advocacy groups,
say these loans typically have higher interest rates and fewer consumer
protections than government loans, and that many borrowers would be
better off seeking a cheaper education than resorting to them.

Even so, they have become a financial lifeline for many students.
Antonio Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and
Universities, an industry group that represents schools serving Hispanic
students, says that if access to private loans is cut off, schools and
families would expect Washington to "do something to insure that private
lenders are stimulated to do what is right and provide loans to the
students who need them."

Students and their families often turn to private loans when they have
borrowed as much as they can under lower-cost federal programs.
Theoretically, after a student has used up the federal maximum --
usually $7,500 a year for students at the undergraduate level -- parents
can borrow all that their child needs to pay for college via a federal
"Plus" loan, but the parents must be deemed creditworthy. Needy students
with parents unwilling or unqualified to borrow have few alternatives
other than private lenders.

Getting By

Amorelle Henry, 25, has two semesters left to go of nursing school at
the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo. She borrowed about
$15,000 in private loans from various lenders in each of the past two
years to supplement federal grants and loans and cover her living
expenses. This year, her lenders rejected her loan applications, citing
her FICO score, which, at 626, is unchanged from last year, she says.
She says that her parents are dealing with financial setbacks of their
own and haven't qualified for federal Plus loans in the past.

Ms. Henry says she will try to get through the fall semester by working
24 hours a week as a nurse's assistant while also dealing with a full
load of classes and clinical assignments. But she worries she won't be
able to maintain her B average and handle the job during the spring
semester, when she is required to complete an unpaid, 40-hour-a-week
internship. "I'm scared half to death," Ms. Henry says.

In May, the securities markets that lenders use to raise capital for
students loans -- both federal and private -- seized up. The Bush
administration announced a plan to avert problems with the federally
guaranteed loans made by private-sector lenders. Using authority granted
earlier this year by Congress, the government plans to buy and invest in
such loans, freeing up capital so lenders can make new ones. But that
didn't provide any new money for private lending.

Some industry observers say that families may be able to cobble together
the funds to pay for the fall, but then run into trouble later in the
year. Their concern is that lenders may grow even more selective, and
some parents could face job losses and see a decline in the home-equity
lines that many have tapped for college costs. "The second semester
could really be a problem," says Maureen Budetti, director of
student-aid policy for the National Association of Independent Colleges
and Universities.

Write to Robert Tomsho at rob.tomsho@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841359412328449.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) mailto:rob.tomsho@wsj.com
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution
and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by
copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please
contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.
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WSJ: "We are on the cusp of a renewed deceleration in growth,"

2008-08-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal

August 11, 2008

Economists Expect
2008's Second Half
To Be Worse Than First
By KELLY EVANS
August 11, 2008; Page A2

The U.S. economy, facing a consumer-spending slowdown and a weakening
global economy, is poised for an unpleasant finish to 2008.
WSJ's Adam Najberg talks with reporter Kelly Evans about her outlook on
the U.S. economy.

The pattern of growth that is emerging this year -- a mediocre first
half followed by a weaker second half -- is the reverse of what most
forecasts showed at the beginning of the year.

"We now believe the economic weakness in the U.S. will likely worsen,"
Kenneth Chenault, chief executive of American Express Co., said last
month when it posted second-quarter earnings short of analyst estimates.

Economists have downgraded growth forecasts in recent weeks. "We are on
the cusp of a renewed deceleration in growth," Goldman Sachs economists
said, noting that a contraction in consumer spending is likely over the
second half of this year and that "the risk that foreign-demand weakness
will wash back onto U.S. shores is clearly growing."

Households are grappling with layoffs, stagnant wages, falling home
values and tighter credit. The U.S. government's economic-stimulus
program, which was intended to give households a boost in the middle of
the year, may not have done enough to stave off recession. The payments
coincided with a run-up in fuel prices, so a portion of the checks were
gobbled up at the gas pump. So far, most of the money appears to have
gone to savings and debt rather than to immediate spending in stores.

"The air is coming out of the balloon pretty quickly here," said Brian
Bethune, a senior economist with Global Insight, a Lexington, Mass.,
forecasting firm. "Consumers are just throwing in the towel."
ECONOMICS BLOG

[go to blog]1
• Real Time Economics: A Global Recession?2

Retail sales in July were weaker than expected at many chain stores,
suggesting the May and June sales boost from the stimulus checks is
quickly fading. Talbots Inc., Kohl's Corp. and Gap Inc. were among those
retailers reporting double-digit sales declines last month.

Discounters, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp.,
fared better, but Wal-Mart U.S. President Eduardo Castro-Wright warned
that spending could slow: "With the end of the stimulus checks, we know
consumers are spending more cautiously," he said.

Consumer spending is poised to weaken just as foreign growth -- a vital
offset to sluggish domestic demand -- also shows signs of slowing.

Surging export growth, coupled with falling demand for imports, added
2.4 percentage points to second-quarter growth in U.S. gross domestic
product -- marking the largest contribution in nearly three decades.
Without that contribution, GDP would have slipped 0.5%.

Last month the "beige book" survey of regional economic conditions
compiled by the regional Federal Reserve banks found that producers
worried about weakening overseas demand. In the Chicago area,
export-oriented firms "noted a recent slowing in the pace of growth,
particularly in demand from Europe." Boston-area manufacturers indicated
that "foreign demand growth may be slowing," while in Dallas some
manufacturers specifically cited "weak demand in Western Europe."

And Norbert Ore, an executive at Georgia-Pacific Corp. who oversees the
Institute for Supply Management's monthly survey of U.S. manufacturing
activity, called declining exports "the biggest risk we face as an
industry."

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, in holding
euro-zone interest rates steady at 4.25% last week, said that while he
remains focused on inflation, data point to weaker growth.

Japan, meanwhile, may already be in recession. Second-quarter GDP data,
set to be released Tuesday, are expected to show the world's
second-largest economy contracted.

J.P. Morgan's index of global manufacturing activity contracted in July
for the second straight month, turning in its worst performance in five
years as new orders fell to their lowest level since late 2001.
Production in Japan and the U.K. contracted at the sharpest rate since
the 1998 Asian financial crisis, while euro-zone production had its
fastest fall since early 2002. Spreading weakness means that the U.S.,
the euro zone, and Japan, which together make up nearly two-thirds of
global GDP, are flirting with recession. Fast-growing economies like
China, India and Brazil could follow.

Weak exports could lead to further deterioration in the U.S. labor
market as companies lose business, according to Joseph Lupton, a senior
economist at J.P. Morgan. "The bottom line is it's going to be a weak
second half."

Federal Reserve policy makers appear concerned about the second half. In
a statement following the Tuesday decision to hold its interest-rate
target at 2%, the Fed policy-setting committee omitted a reference from
its prior statement suggesting that the risks of weaker growth had
diminished. The Fed reiterated its view that "tight credit conditions,
the ongoing housing contraction, and elevated energy prices are likely
to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters." Still, there
may be a silver lining: Slowing global demand is helping to bring down
the cost of oil and other commodities. Falling prices could offer relief
to consumers and ease some companies' cost pressures. That could also
ease inflation concerns at the Fed, giving it more leeway to bolster the
economy through lower interest rates.

Write to Kelly Evans at kelly.evans@wsj.com3
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121840429062728035.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1)
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/08/10/the-second-half-outlook-a-global-recession-2/
(2)
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/08/10/the-second-half-outlook-a-global-recession-2/
(3) mailto:kelly.evans@wsj.com
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution
and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by
copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please
contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.
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WSJ: Mortgage-Market Trouble, Reaches Big Credit Unions

2008-08-11T12:41:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal

August 11, 2008

PAGE ONE

Mortgage-Market Trouble
Reaches Big Credit Unions
By MARK MAREMONT
August 11, 2008; Page A1

Five of the nation's largest credit unions are reporting big paper
losses on mortgage-related securities, a sign that housing-market
distress is spreading even to the most risk-averse financial sectors.

The federal regulator overseeing credit unions says the losses are
likely to be reversed when mortgage markets stabilize, and that the
institutions are sound and adequately capitalized. But some outside
observers are concerned that the credit unions are underestimating the
depth of their mortgage-market problems.
[Banking Alternative]

"This is a serious situation," says Gerald Hanweck, a finance professor
at George Mason University, who studies the banking industry and is a
visiting scholar at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Mr. Hanweck
believes the five firms have sufficient access to funding to handle a
deeper downturn, but he worries that perceptions of added risk could
lead to a run on one or more of them.

Credit unions are not-for-profit, member-owned cooperatives that take
deposits and lend money like banks. The mortgage problems are focused on
so-called corporate credit unions, which are key players in the
industry. They don't deal directly with consumers, but provide
investment services and financing to regular credit unions, which do.

The five corporates showing big mortgage-related losses, according to
federal regulatory filings, are U.S. Central Federal Credit Union;
Western Corporate Federal Credit Union; Members United Corporate Federal
Credit Union; Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union; and Constitution
Corporate Federal Credit Union. Together, they reported about $5.7
billion in "unrealized" losses as of the end of May, the filings
indicate. Unrealized losses happen when the market value of a security
falls, even if it hasn't been sold.

Credit unions in general are among the most conservatively run financial
institutions in the U.S. That some are showing strains indicates that
almost no financial sector is immune from the mortgage meltdown that has
caused widespread carnage among commercial banks and on Wall Street.
Financial-services firms have already taken write-downs of more than
$300 billion in connection with the mortgage mess.

"We're not much different from any financial institution," says Michael
Kinne, chief financial officer of Constitution Corporate in Wallingford,
Conn. "Nobody is insulated from this. It seems like every time you turn
around, somebody else is taking a billion-dollar write-down."

Kent Buckham, director of the office of corporate credit unions for the
National Credit Union Administration, the federal regulator, says the
mortgage investments held by corporate credit unions are safer than many
that are causing havoc on Wall Street, and are very likely to rebound in
value. In his view, the paper losses reported by the corporate credit
unions reflect unrealistically low market values for mortgage
investments, in part due to investor nervousness about the sector. He
says he doesn't expect the firms will have to sell those assets at
"fire-sale prices."

There have been predictions for months that the mortgage-market turmoil
was coming to an end, and that mortgage-related assets would bounce back
in value. So far, that hasn't happened.

Negative Equity

The paper losses of the five big corporate credit unions are large
enough to wipe out the net worth of each of them. Added together, their
negative equity totals $2.9 billion -- meaning, in theory, that their
debts exceed the current market value of their assets by that amount.
That would be a troubling situation for a commercial bank. But credit
unions say their balance sheets are a lot stronger than they appear
because current accounting rules don't allow them to show a key source
of capital -- certain funds parked with the corporates by regular credit
unions.
[Mortgage Woes]

To address what it says is a misleading financial picture, the federal
regulator, the NCUA, plans this month to revise an accounting rule to
allow corporate credit unions to more clearly highlight in their federal
filings these funds, called membership capital.

The corporate credit unions showing the biggest losses, U.S. Central and
Western Corporate, reacted to the mortgage-market turmoil with an
unusual accounting change. They reclassified some assets in a way that
allows them to avoid recording any more unrealized losses. Executives at
those firms say the shift, which was reviewed by regulators, frees them
from reporting losses on investments they have no plans to sell.

Critics say the move is accounting window dressing that covers up real
problems. "What all of a sudden changed?" says Lynn Turner, a former
chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "The only
reason to do it is to avoid reporting further losses in the financial
statements."

Little Impact

So far, the troubles of the corporate credit unions appear to be having
little impact on regular credit unions. Executives at several of the
regular firms say they are closely monitoring the financial condition of
the corporates, but that they remain confident and haven't reduced their
funds on deposit with the corporates.

There were about 8,400 credit unions holding more than $775 billion in
assets at the end of last year, according to an industry trade group.
Many serve employees of a specific company, members of occupational or
other groups, or a geographical area. Some have expanded greatly in
recent years, adding branches and competing more directly with
commercial banks.

Corporate credit unions were founded to serve regular credit unions,
many of which are too small to engage directly in sophisticated
investing. Regular credit unions park a portion of their funds with one
or more of the corporates, which in turn invest the money. In total, the
28 corporates, which are owned by their member credit unions, have about
$90 billion in assets. (U.S. Central serves as a credit union for
corporates, providing them with similar investment services.)

By regulation, the corporates are supposed to invest only in safe
securities that are highly liquid, meaning easy to sell. In recent
years, some have made investments backed by subprime and so-called Alt-A
loans extended to buyers with poor or spotty credit. Despite the risky
underlying loans, Wall Street had concocted ways to package the loans so
that slices of the investments appeared ultrasafe. Most bought by the
credit unions initially carried top credit ratings of AAA.

The big credit unions, like other investors, generally were caught
unprepared for the meltdown in mortgage markets that began in mid-2007.
Buyers became scarce, and even some high-rated investments dropped
sharply in value.

The result: Some corporate credit unions have been forced to record
large unrealized losses on their assets, even though they continue to
own the securities. For example, Southwest Corporate reported $672
million in such losses as of the end of May. The Plano, Texas-based
company, with $12.2 billion in total assets, says the problems are
centered on about $2.5 billion in securities backed by subprime or Alt-A
mortgages and home-equity loans.

Bruce Fox, Southwest Corporate's chief investment officer, says the
securities it holds generally are safer than the ones causing massive
losses on Wall Street. "These are very high-quality assets, and all of
them are paying principal or interest at the moment," he says. As of the
end of May, 94% of its mortgage-related securities were still rated AAA.
Instead of selling at what it views as distressed prices, Southwest
plans to hold the investments until they recover or until maturity, he says.

Crucial Contention

The contention that the mortgage losses are temporary is a crucial one
for the corporate credit unions. Under accounting and regulatory rules,
temporary losses don't eat into earnings or capital, while permanent
losses do. (Financial institutions are required to have adequate
capital, usually expressed as a percentage of assets.)

In the case of Southwest Corporate, if it counted as permanent $100
million of its $672 million in "unrealized" losses as of the end of May,
it would have fallen below the minimum capital threshold set by the
NCUA. Unlike banks, credit unions can't easily raise new capital, which
they generally get from accumulating earnings over the years.

Mr. Fox says there's "a very low probability" of any significant
permanent write-offs. Southwest's capital, he adds, continues to grow
with strong earnings.

Todd Adams, chief financial officer of Members United -- another of the
five firms -- also says that any unrealized losses are likely to be
temporary. But "if market conditions continue to deteriorate," he says,
"some of [the investments] could see real cash losses." He adds that "it
would take a lot to do that, but there's a lot of bad news in the market
right now."

Reclassified Assets

Starting early this year, the two biggest corporates, Western Corporate
and U.S. Central, reclassified a large portion of the mortgage-related
assets on their balance sheets from "available for sale" to "held to
maturity." The NCUA says no corporate credit union had ever done that.

Under accounting rules, if a firm says it plans to hold an asset until
it matures, it doesn't need to record any temporary swings in the
asset's market value. The move allowed the two firms to avoid taking
further unrealized losses on those holdings, although they would have to
write off any permanent or realized losses.

At the end of May, Western Corporate had moved $9.6 billion to the new
category -- about one-third of its total investments -- including all
its Alt-A mortgage-related assets. Chief Financial Officer Jim Hayes
says the shift "wasn't a matter of jury-rigging the accounting." He says
the securities chosen were ones for which the firm had difficulty
getting accurate pricing. "We never felt like we had to do it before,
because we didn't feel like we had the pricing dislocations before." He
adds that Western intends to hold the securities to maturity, which the
new category more accurately reflects. He says the company consulted
with its outside auditors and the NCUA before making the change.

U.S. Central, which shifted a big batch of assets to the new category in
June, had $10.9 billion of its $35.3 billion of investments in that
grouping at the end of that month, compared with none at year-end 2007.
Chief Financial Officer Kathryn Brick says the decision stemmed partly
from "the negative perception of these unrealized losses, which are
paper losses....We just wanted to cap the unrealized losses." A bigger
factor, she says, is that U.S. Central arranged new sources of
financing, including credit lines with federal agencies, so no longer
needed to consider all of its holdings as available for sale. Ms. Brick
says the shift is allowed under accounting rules.

Other corporate credit unions haven't followed suit. Mr. Adams, the
finance chief at Members United, says the traditional accounting better
shows his firm's members where the problems are in its portfolio. "We
had selected available-for-sale before, and we should stay consistent,
even though we're going through an historic situation in the market," he
says.

The accounting shift has a potential downside for the two big credit
unions. If the market value of the reclassified investments starts to
climb, they won't be able to show that increase on their balance sheets.

As with banks, credit unions are federally insured up to $100,000 per
account and $250,000 per retirement account. So far this year, nine
regular credit unions have failed, including at least two due to
mortgage-related problems. Seven failed in 2007.

In theory, the failure of a corporate credit union could lead to losses
for any regular credit union that has deposited money with the
corporate, and ripple down to individual depositors. The last time a
corporate credit union failed was in 1995. Ultimately, the regular
credit unions that were involved recovered their money.

The NCUA's Mr. Buckham says the possibility that a corporate credit
union might fail now is "so remote" that "I can't even imagine that
happening."

Write to Mark Maremont at mark.maremont@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121842336441828975.html

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