NewsTaco

By Peter Malof, Public News Service – TX

AUSTIN, Texas – Middle-class families have taken the biggest hit during “The Great Recession,” according to a Federal Reserve Bulletin report on family wealth. Experts think declining home values and the foreclosure crisis are largely responsible, since home ownership is the main source of wealth for most Americans.

Algernon Austin, director, Program on Race, Ethnicity & the Economy, Economic Policy Institute, says for people of color, the decline is even worse, since many minorities have been the targets of descriminatory lending practices.

“Following the Federal Reserve data for African Americans, we saw that the home ownership rate actually peaked in 2004, and we’ve been seeing a rather strong decline since then.”

Texas has weathered the foreclosure crisis better than most states, with home values remaining relatively stable. However, many non-white borrowers in the state were handicapped by unfair lending practices going back at least a decade, according to U.S. Department of Justice complaints filed against lenders. Just this month, Wells Fargo agreed to pay out $175 million after being accused of targeting minorities for low-quality loans in 36 states – including more than 1,000 borrowers in the Houston area alone.

Because of such practices, the decline in minority wealth is not surprising, says David Berenbaum, chief program officer, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, given the lax underwriting standards of big financial institutions for home loan products.

“African American and Latino consumers were often steered into products – frankly, subprime loans or nontraditional loans – when they qualified for prime, high credit, high-quality products.”

While the Bush administration promoted minority home lending during the last decade, some critics blame the Democrat-sponsored Community Reinvestment Act for the crisis. It’s a charge Berenbaum rejects.

“The myth out there is that low incomes from consumers who were not ready for home ownership created this crisis. In fact, most of the subprime loans were refinanced loans, not loans designed to expand home ownership.”

The Federal Reserve report says average middle-class net worth rose significantly during the first half of the last decade, then dropped off, with Hispanics and blacks experiencing the sharpest losses.

The Public News Service (PNS) provides reporting on a wide range of social, community, and environmental issues for mainstream and alternative media that amplifies progressive voices, is easy to use and has a proven track record of success. Supported by over 400 nonprofit organizations and other contributors, PNS provides high-quality news on public issues and current affairs.

[Photo By respres]

By Communities United Against Foreclosure and Eviction

Last year, Melecio and Beatriz Delgado applied for a loan modification for their modest single-family house on the northwest side of Chicago. At the time, CitiBank and a number of other big banks were under pressure from the Obama administration to offer quick modifications. The Delgados agreed to a loan package and made their new monthly payments religiously every month, about $100 less per month than the old payments.

CitiBank cashed the checks for seven straight months, but on the eighth month the family received a surprise. CitiBank refused to accept their payments and decided to foreclose on their home after nine years of receiving full, on-time payments from the family. After many months of getting the run-around through the mail and never actually getting to talk to a real human being at CitiBank the Delgados, shocked and frustrated from a year of neglect, came to the Centro Autónomo de Albany Park for assistance.

During housing meetings at the Centro Autónomo, held every first Thursday and third Saturday of the month, friends and neighbors decided to organize a protest at the local CitiBank branch on Milwaukee and California to demand attention to the Delgado’s case. The night before the action, community members in English classes at the Centro Autónomo created signs for the protest – this would truly be a community effort.

The next day, community members distributed the Delgado family’s demands to people passing by CitiBank: halt the foreclosure and respect the loan modification. As the protesters proclaimed, “banks got bailed out, people got sold out,” and “homes for people, not for banks” to passing drivers who demonstrated support by honking horns and pumping fists.

After twenty-five minutes, Beatriz, Melecio and their daughters entered Citibank, hoping for the first time to be able to present their case to a real flesh and blood human. Instead, the well-trained CitiBank branch directors offered only the phone number of the bank’s Public Relations Department. The Delgados left the bank slightly disheartened, yet determined to continue fighting for their home.

Five minutes later the Chicago Police Department, apparently under instruction from Citibank, arrested one of the Delgado’s allies for allegedly trespassing. The ally was released from custody seven hours later and is fighting the bogus charge meant to dissuade similar actions by community groups. Not coincidentally, the next day Citibank called Melecio to apologize and offer a new loan modification. They have yet to see the details, but the Delgados are optimistic.

While we at the Centro Autónomo de Albany Park savor this potential victory, we also remain focused on the larger picture and continue to fight for housing as a human right! In our neighborhood, one of every fifteen houses in foreclosure, and as many as one in seven is in danger of foreclosure in the coming year. As Melecio stated very clearly, “I am going to fight. I will go as far as I need to go and I will fight until the end.” We must keep the pressure on banks and the government with anti-eviction defenses, occupation of vacant homes, and defense of renters who are often tricked and lied to throughout the foreclosure process. Working together as communities united, we can force abusive banks to back off.

Communities United Against Foreclosure and Eviction is a member organization of various communities in and around Chicago who fight to keep people in their homes, and to claim land for people who are homeless.  We have chapters in Albany Park,Austin, Belmont Cragin, Rogers Park, and Logan Square.

[Photo By respres]

By Paul Adams

In the suburbs of North Hollywood, vans from major news networks enveloped a phalanx of demonstrators protesting the recent deportation of Blanca Cardenas. The protest began at around 6 p.m. Tuesday, heavily organized by members of the Occupy LA movement — in particular, activists Cheryl Aichele and Carlos Marroquín — for Blanca Cárdenas, who was scooped up by police when she was found to be occupying her foreclosed home in North Hollywood.

Across the street from the protest was U.S. citizen and husband of Blanca, Gerardo Quiñones, who was left behind, along with their distressed 19-month-old daughter, Gloria.

Blanca, 39, had spent a good portion of her life in the United States falling in love with Gerardo and then recently raising their daughter in their home in North Hollywood. She was suddenly deported because Bank of America foreclosed their home without giving them much time to settle with the news. The new owners who bought the foreclosed home (representing record numbers of foreclosed homes being bought by third parties, peaking at 27.4% last September) found Gerardo and Blanca still inhabiting the home and called the police on them. Upon their arrest, the LAPD discovered that Blanca had no papers.

At one point, one of the protesters clad in dark sunglasses, a hood, and a bandana-veil, kicked down and broke through the holsters of the couples’ front door. The crowd began to roar before breaking into another chant led by Aichele, “Who’s house?! Blanca’s house!” Protestors began to sing Johnny Cash’s song, “I Shall Not Be Moved” while some of them began to post up small tents onto the grass of the front lawn.

Gerardo and many of the Occupy LA activists feel that Blanca should never have been arrested. They are part of a foreclosure epidemic that has spread across the U.S. by many of the national banks — especially in California where 1 in 5 of all foreclosures take place — many of these foreclosures are pegged by attorneys as illegally prosecuted. Some of that includes something called “robo-signing”, an exercise where bank personnel signs affidavits that were untrue, or without verifying the information contained in said documents, even sometimes not based on the signor’s actual knowledge.

In fact, the Superior Court of Los Angeles is suing Bank of America to the tune of $500 million based on a stock pile of cases where homes appeared to be foreclosed illegally by the company. Consequently, in the middle of the demonstrations, Marroquín pleaded to anyone with open ears to withdraw all of their money from Bank of America, to show their displeasure with the company’s actions. Another protestor, Aichele, recently went with other Occupy LA activists to meet with Wells Fargo representatives and demand they freeze foreclosures that have destroyed many families just like Blanca’s.

Later in the evening, Marroquín relayed threats by the police that anyone on the house property would be promptly arrested. By 7:30 p.m., with a line of police standing by, virtually everyone was dispersed from the premises and the chants began to fade, much like Blanca’s story will. Gerardo, however, stuck around a little longer giving his last interviews, trying to remain cautiously optimistic, in front of a place they had always called home.

Paul Adams is a writer who lives in Los Angeles, follow him on Twitter @Yustomovic.

[Photo By ubrayj02]