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.
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Saturday, May 2, 2009
May 1 March and Rally - Detroit
WWJ News: May Day March in Detroit drew 15,000 people this year!
Pictures by Alan
Pictures by Alan
Friday, May 1, 2009
5,000 rally in Detroit for immigrant rights
Photo-BRIAN WIDDIS/Special to the Free PressA 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
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Hitting the Pause on Foreclosures
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
.
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
.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
March and Rally - May 1, 2009
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
Saturday, March 7, 2009
People’s Summit June 14-17
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.
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
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