Occupy’s NEXT Frontier: FORECLOSED HOMES

[Segami]

A campaign to defend families from evictions and protest foreclosure fraud launches next week.



:applause:



" Occupy Wall Street is promising a “big day of action” Dec. 6 that will focus on the foreclosure crisis and protest “fraudulent lending practices,” “corrupt securitization,” and illegal evictions by banks. :applause: The day will mark the beginning of an Occupy Our Homes campaign that organizers hope will energize the movement as it moves indoors as well as bring the injustices of the economic crisis into sharp relief.



Many of the details aren’t yet public, but protesters in 20 cities are expected to take part in the day of action next Tuesday. We’ve already seen eviction defenses at foreclosed properties around the country as well as takeovers of vacant properties for homeless families. Occupy Our Homes organizer Abby Clark tells me protesters are planning to “mic-check” (i.e., disrupt) foreclosure auctions as well as launch some new home occupations. “This is a shift from protesting Wall Street fraud to taking action on behalf of people who were harmed by it. It brings the movement into the neighborhoods and gives people a sense of what’s really at stake,” said Max Berger, one of the Occupy Our Homes organizers and a member of Occupy Wall Street’s movement-building working group.



The backdrop for all this is a new study suggesting the foreclosure crisis is only half over, with 4 million homes in some stage of foreclosure. Meanwhile, reports of illegal or questionable behavior by banks and mortgage lenders continue to stream in. Like many of the Occupy actions that have focused on specific policy questions, this one is being organized by established progressive and labor-affiliated groups along with their allies in the movement. Among the allied groups listed on Occupy Our Homes’ website, for example, are the New Bottom Line and New York Communities for Change. On the Occupy Wall Street side of things, members of the direct action working group and the movement-building group in New York have been involved in the project.



Occupy Our Homes’ website (which was registered by a former SEIU official) has the trappings of a slick professional campaign, with videos featuring the stories of families facing foreclosures and a pledge visitors are encouraged to sign stating:


… that until the banks do their part to help homeowners and to fix the economy, by writing down mortgage principal to current home values, I will:


I will support homeowners resisting wrongful foreclosure evictions.


I will resist any attempt by the bank to take my home.


If they come to foreclose, I will not go.




cont'


http://www.salon.com/2011/11/30/occupys_next_frontier_foreclosed_homes/singleton/


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[Huey P. Long]

1. I recommend this occupation. -eom

[dkf]

2. I imagine the robosigning is pretty much done. What will be the defense then?

[Cleita]

3. Those who were evicted from their homes

should pitch their tents on the front lawns of the executives of those banks, or at least find public places they can occupy where they can be seen by the residents of those neighborhoods. In very rich enclaves there is a lot of lawn and land to do so. Even doing so at the gates of closed communities could be effective because usually there is surrounding landscaping and those people would have to pass them everyday while going in and out through the gate.

[Segami]

4. Sounds like a plan that will garnish a cross-section of increased support from many.

[Kingofalldems]

5. Kick and Rec for the 'mock and undermine' crowd

They will find a way to trash this.

[SOS]

6. Reminiscent of the Iowa penny auctions of the 1930s

The communities stood up and blocked foreclosure auctions.
Foreclosures were made illegal in Iowa as of 1933.

More:

February 17, 1933. The Iowa state legislature has passed a foreclosure moratorium law that will keep banks from foreclosing on farms unable to cover their mortgages. The growing number of "penny auctions" and the threat of violence at farm auctions led to this measure.
In farm regions, an estimated 76 foreclosure sales were blocked by penny auctions in January and February alone.



http://newdeal.feri.org/timeline/1933c.htm

[Huey P. Long]

7. .

[Johnson20]

8. "until the banks do their part to help homeowners and to fix the economy,

by writing down mortgage principal to current home values." Yeah, that will go over real well with the general public.
Maybe mortgage principal should be written up when home values are inflating in good times

I would have loved to have bought a nicer home a few yeas ago and now have the mortgage written down or get taxpayer help with my payments.

I guess I just don't get this idea and certainly will not support it.

[femrap]

9. K and R. nt