Help keep families in their homes!

Published February 04, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT

Together with Shannon, Change.org's homelessness blogger, I will be bringing you regular updates and coverage of a terrific new anti-foreclosure action program by ACORN. I encourage you to join ACORN today as a Home Defender,a member of a team

"prepared to mobilize on short notice to peacefully help defend a family's right to stay in their homes until a fair solution to the crisis is put into place by the new Administration. We are recruiting allies and elected officials to support our efforts and call for a full and comprehensive solution to this crisis."

The Home Defender initiative is part of ACORN's decade-long anti-foreclosure campaign, which fights to stop and curb the impacts of predatory lending in low-income, often minority communities. Predatory lending is a form of subprime lending that offers deliberately opaque, usurious loans targeted towards borrowers likelier to be less informed and/or lack access to traditional sources of credit - the elderly are a frequent target. Subprime and predatory loans are disproportionately found in low-income, non-white urban communities, places that are frequently also underserved by banks, grocery stores, a diverse commercial sector, and other taken-for-granted amenities and services that shore up neighborhoods' socioeconomic base. Now foreclosures are eviscerating many of these communities.

Shannon has some great stats on the foreclosure crisis nationwide. I've written here about other assertive anti-foreclosure efforts to stop people from losing their homes and to stop homes from sitting empty. Please join ACORN, one of the largest community organizing agencies in the U.S., in this important move to halt the fallout from the housing crisis.

And keep checking back with us for more on ACORN, anti-poverty and affordable housing activism.

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Comments (12)

This looks great. I am in favor of stoping the lending structure as we know it. However keeping people in their homes is not all of the problem with poverty in this country.
I hope you will address the other issues of poverty in the future.

Posted by Jeanne Shaw on 02/04/2009 @ 12:56PM PT
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Jeanne,

We address a range of poverty issues here. I hope you'll keep visiting.

Posted by Leigh Graham on 02/04/2009 @ 02:40PM PT
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I saw a news clip yesterday. where an Activist in Miami, helping the homeless, was placing people into empty foreclosed homes! WOW that was a bold move. He stated there are 4600 homeless people in Dade County and about 6000 foreclosed vacant homes. He has temporarily solved a major Homeless problem! Amazing!

Posted by leatrice brantley on 02/04/2009 @ 03:03PM PT
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Are there any paid volunteer positions out here? I am unemployed!

Posted by leatrice brantley on 02/04/2009 @ 03:06PM PT
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Leatrice, I think I've heard about the same Miami activist - his work is impressive!

I don't know about paid opps, but if I hear of any, I will definitely let you know.

Posted by Leigh Graham on 02/04/2009 @ 06:40PM PT
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Hi Leigh, sorry it took so long to reply but I just wanted to up-date you, an ACORN representative from Broward County called me the other day and extended an invitation to become a Home Defender. I will be attending a training session 2-21-09. This will be a nice opportunity to network and get my feet wet in the area. I have a question, I read a post at a "change" site that contained legal information about the illegality of the current "foreclosures" based on case law but for the life of me, I can't find it. It quoted a case from North or South Carolina based on the improper lending practices of banks. It stated that banks couldn't loan money that it didn't have but the banks circumvented the rule by lending on anticipated credit. I should've printed it when I read it. I checked in "Criminal Justice" but "no luck". If you have any information concerning illegal foreclosures, I'd love to have it to take with me. Thank you and keep up the good work!

Posted by leatrice brantley on 02/11/2009 @ 12:50PM PT
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I have sympathy for people who are losing their homes through foreclosures, but I strongly disagree with the Home Defender initiative, which fights to stop and curb the impact of predatory lending. The deregulation of sound banking practices which started under Clinton’s administration have led to the mess this country is currently in.

As a low income - first time home buyer in the 1990's, my first home loan was a subprime loan; when I relocated to a different state due to a promotion my second home loan was also a subprime loan.

Two years into my second mortgage, I had finally straightened out my credit (took 6 years) and applied to refinance my mortgage. I was approved and received a conventional mortgage – 15 year loan at 5.2% fixed rate.

In my opinion, if you don't have a good employment history and if the mortgage will be ¼ your total monthly gross, you shouldn't be approved for a mortgage. Most of the people who are losing their homes must not have read their mortgage paperwork. If their terms were an ARM it states, interest rates can/will go up every year or two years (depending on their mortgage) at 1 - 2% each year or two. This type of loan can be very difficult to pay back if you cannot refinance in a couple years, people need to do the research.

Predatory lending practices were only able to survive because due to the sound banking practices going down the tube. The people who applied are also culpable. If only people would realize if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Here are the cold, hard facts. You must pay your mortgage or you will lose your home. To allow people to stay in the foreclosed home is unfair to the people who are/were in the same boat but DID pay their mortgage.

Why would anyone believe its ok for the Government to bail out people who can't or won't pay their mortgage? Our nation is turning into a country I don’t recognize. This entitlement mentality is getting old. By bailing people out who are in foreclosure, we are rewarding bad behavior/decisions.

Posted by L J on 02/04/2009 @ 10:27PM PT
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This is too true, in 1987 I was approved for 250,000. If I had taken such a mortgage, I would now be homeless. My 90,000 house is a little crowded, but in 12 years it will be mine. I have worked two jobs the whole time with much overtime, i will not ask my fellow taxpayers to bail me out. Also, My most fervent hope for ACORN is that all their leaders go to jail soon for registering illegal immigrants and dead people to vote.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 02/05/2009 @ 04:41AM PT
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Charlie - you're so wrong about ACORN and I suggest you get out there and learn what good voter registration work they do. I've provided links in comments on this site and there's plenty of accurate info out there. I don't tolerate both needless hostility towards undocumented workers or smears about anti-poverty non-profits.

Also, to Charlie and Linda, if you believe that "the poor" are solely to blame for their problems, as your comments imply here, you either need to pay better attention or reconsider whether this site is really for you, because your attitude is a huge part of the problem.

Posted by Leigh Graham on 02/05/2009 @ 05:26AM PT
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Leigh, if You check my comments on the immigration section You will find I am extremely pro immigration, I simply do not believe non citizens should be voting. I have even expressed several times that the path to citizenship should be greatly streamlined. I do not believe ACORN should be registering them until they are citizens. I also feel They should not be registering dead people. It is illegal, and should be. They also should not be receiving government funds, as they are not non-partisan. Have they ever registered a republican? As to the poor, I never said they alone were responsible. The government forced banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them. For your education, I believe in subsidized mortgages for the purposes of assisting these people, I have one! Your assumptions are what is known as "prejudices". Do not assume.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 02/05/2009 @ 09:42AM PT
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Leigh, I should have added that I believe subsidized mortgages when given to deserving people, should come from the govt. directly. Private companys should not be forced to risk their capitol on bad bets.

Posted by Charlie Reed on 02/05/2009 @ 11:31AM PT
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Leigh,

I did not write 'the poor' are solely to blame for their problems. You need to learn how to infer when reading posts; you also come across obtuse. I also stand by my previous post.

I know what I write - I was very poor until I was 31 or so. When I was younger I was married to a man who decided he didn’t want to work even though we had three children under the age of 5; we were very poor. We didn't have health insurance and I learned to make many dishes with hamburger and tuna. I was on welfare, food stamps and WIC. We barely had enough money to pay the utilities and rent.

I divorced my worthless husband, went back to school under the Reagan Job Training Program in 1984. I received Pell Grants and various scholarships that helped with day care, etc. I received a BS in Business Administration in 1987. Three weeks after graduation I applied for a job in the Defense Industry and was subsequently hired.

I worked my fanny off to get where I am now. I also volunteer to help the homeless and poor; I offer free seminars at homeless shelters in my community to help people understand poverty is not a life sentence. While getting out under the poverty umbrella is difficult, it can be done if you have the right attitude and people who will help you work the system.

Quite a few of the homeless in the major metropolitan areas where I have lived suffer from some form of mental illness that goes untreated. Most self medicate with drugs or alcohol.

Back to the OP, do you actually believe a family who had their home foreclosed should be able to live there for free? Also, doesn’t the sheriff usually remove people from the home and place their belongings on the curb?

Posted by L J on 02/05/2009 @ 09:13PM PT
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Author

Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.