ACCE Press Clips

Contra Costa Times, Sept 15, Report: Foreclosure crisis to crush Oakland home values by $12 billion

Sacramento Bee, Sept 15 After year's lull, Sacramento-area forclosures roared back in August

LA Times, Sept 15 New foreclosures surge during August in hardest-hit markets

San Diego Union Tribune, Another failure in home-rescue programs?

Oakland Tribune, Sept 14, "Report: Foreclosure crisis to crush Oakland home values by $12 billion"

KPBS (San Diego), Sept 14, "City Council Hears Proposed Ordinance Regarding Foreclosed Homes"

OB Rag (San Diego), Sept 13, "Land Use and Housing Committee to consider "Property Value Protection Ordinance"

CBS (SF), September 6, "Banks Find Loophole to Avoid Cleaning up Richmond Foreclosures"

Univision, September 7, "Residentes de Richmond Se Quejan Casas Abandonadas"

Richmond Confidential, September 7, "Mayor & Police Chief Pledge Tougher Stance on Blight and Banks"

The Bay Citizen (Oakland), August 23: "Squatting Homeowners Persistence Pays Off"

Oakland Local, August 22, "Organizations, Clergy, Divest From Wells Fargo"

Fox5 News (San Diego), August 18, "Foreclosure Town Hall Meeting Held in Chollas View"

Pasadena Star News, August 18, "Protesters take over OneWest Bank headquarters in Pasadena"

Univision 14 (Bay area), July 7, ""Estás Viendo: Casas abandonadas por bancos en Richmond"

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=144098919001056&comments

June 9, ABC 7/San Jose: San Jose residents tired of foreclosure messes

City Beat (San Diego): June 15th, "Banker's Blight"

Through the depths of the recession, major Wall Street banks and other financial institutions spent nearly $70 million in California to try to defeat or water down California legislation aimed at slowing real estate foreclosures.

The money, spent on lobbying fees and political contributions, came from 2007 to 2010 - at the same time the banks were getting billions of dollars in federal taxpayer bailouts to keep them from collapsing.

A report commissioned by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment criticized the banks and mortgage lenders for spending the money in the political arena rather than working harder to keep people in their homes.

"There's no doubt that the banking industry is spending millions of dollars in an effort to advance its agenda in Sacramento," said Amy Schur, the alliance's executive director. "Too often, their agenda means less regulation for the banks and more freedom to operate at will.

Dustin Hobbs, a spokesman for the California Mortgage Bankers Assn., defended the lobbying and contributions by banks and their allies.

"Everyone has a right to have a voice in important policy discussions - both consumers and businesses," he said. "In California in recent years, we've seen a tremendous increase in the number of bills proposed that would have an impact on the real estate, finance industry."

The financial institutions included in the study were Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, as well as the California Bankers Assn., the California Independent Bankers and the California Mortgage Bankers Assn.

Over the four-year period, banks and financial institutions spent $23.3 million on lobbying and $45.9 million on campaign contributions to candidates, initiative campaigns, political party organizations and other groups.

An example of a bill the banks were against, Schur said, was SB 1275, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). It would have required mortgage servicers to complete negotiations aimed at modifying a loan before moving to foreclose.

The bill got only 30 out of 41 needed votes to pass the Assembly, with 12 Democrats failing to vote on the proposal even though Steinberg was a top caucus leader.

"The banking industry and their lobbyists worked very, very hard in killing it," Schur said. The bill has been re-introduced this year.
Hobbs said the California Mortgage Bankers Assn. has supported bills that helped homeowners, including a 2009 measure that required loan servicers and homeowners to talk directly with each other to try to prevent a foreclosure. The bill provided extra time for renters to stay in a house when a landlord had been foreclosed upon and gave cities tools to ensure that foreclosed properties were maintained.

Last year, the association supported a bill that allowed homeowners to sell their properties for less than the value of their original loan and not be required to still owe the difference to the bank, Hobbs said.
Another trade group, the California Bankers Assn., represents all the major banking institutions that operate in the state. Spokeswoman Beth Mills said that members of the group have participated in programs that "helped folks to stay in their homes whenever possible."

There were half a million foreclosures in the state in 2010, and that total isn't expected to change much this year, said Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, which advocates to bring equality in financial and housing services to low-income citizens.

"The reality is the banks are stronger in the Legislature than the consumer groups," Stein said. "In a time of unprecedented crisis in mortgage lending and foreclosures, we should have seen better and more legislation from the folks in Sacramento."

He said his group and its allies hope that the Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature and the new Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, will pass housing-related bills that previously died or were vetoed by former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"I think this year will be different because the problems have only gotten worse," Stein said.

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

Times staff writer Nathaniel Popper contributed to this report.

# Original story found at http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/05/business/la-fi-bank-lobbying-20110406

March 20, 2011 (San Diego) -- Rallies held in San Diego, Ramona, and across California last week demanded accountability by big banks and called on the public to support new legislative bills aimed at curbing California's soaring foreclosure rates.

David Lagstein, an organizer of the "Hold Wall Street Accountable" rally in front of Bank America in downtown San Diego March 16, noted that there were similar events throughout the state. "The people that came to our event were a mix of homeowners and members of coalition organizations. We are now doing district meetings with legislators in San Diego and throughout the state to try to push these bills through the community process," he said, adding that larger actions are planned in April.

Organizations involved in the effort include the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) (representing low-income people, immigrants and workers), PICO, a network of faith-based groups seeking to bring voices of ordinary Califiornians into the policy arena, Service Employees Union International (SEIU), the Ramona Forum (a progressive community group) and the Home Defenders League (www.homedefendersleague.org) , a group battling the power of big banks and Wall Street.

A website about the campaign also includes a study that claims to document costs of foreclosures in California at www.refundcalifornia.org. According to the site, two million foreclosures are projected in California alone in 2012; Californians have lost $627 billion in savings in their homes amid a recession in which 1.2 million jobs have been lost and the state faces a $26 billion budget deficit. At the same time, banks have benefited from $789 billion in federal bail-outs-while $146 billion in bank bonuses and pay were made.

The coalition seeks legislation to require fair lending that would modify more loans to save more homes. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, banks and servicers often pursue a modification and foreclosure at the same time, commonly referred to as dual-tracking. But because it is difficult to stop the foreclosure process after it starts - even if a borrower qualifies for a loan modification - the homeowner can still lose the home.

Protest organizers also want legislation that would require a foreclosure fee be paid by foreclosing institutions; money raised would help pay back cities, counties, schools and the state for costs related to foreclosures. The coalition also calls for fair financing by halting "toxic interest rate swaps", a move sponsors claim would save cities and states hundreds of millions in taxpayers' dollars.

Protesters in Ramona, where 1 in every 225 homes is in foreclosure.Dave Patterson is the organizer of the Ramona forum's demonstrations last week outside Bank America in Ramona, where one in every 225 homes is facing foreclosure. He plans an April 6 rally at 6 p.m. called "Protect America's Dream" at the Ramona Library, and will also host demonstrations each Friday at 4 p.m. in front of Bank America in Ramona. For information, see www.ramonaforum.org.

La Mesa Patch.com reports that a network of organizations irate about the number of foreclosures across the United States is urging Ramonans to take action. Members of Ramona Forum, HERSid and National Homeowners Cooperative plan to have Ramona protests be the kickoff for a nationwide campaign to put pressure on banks and the courts to halt the process of people being displaced from their homes.

Steve Campbell, who says he spent 30 years in the mortgage and real estate industries,co-founded of HERSid.com, a Ramona-based data mining company that gathers information relating to the "Broken Chain of Title" along with Charles Koppa, a Ramona Realtor. Campbell founded Protect American's Dream; both are also founders of National Homeowners Cooperatives. These groups state on their websites that they want to unite people concerned about foreclosure and provide resources to prevent homeowners' "financial ruin."

Asked by La Mesa Patch.com why Ramona protests would be the catalyst for a nationwide effort, Campbell said, "I feel that Ramona is indicative of the heart of America."

Patterson says his forum members are asking the public to call their state legislators and ask that three bills be passed: AB 935, SB 729, and AB 1321. Below are descriptions provided by the forum:

AB 935 (Blumenfield): This bill would impose a fee of $20,000 on a foreclosing party in order to mitigate the economic impact of foreclosures on cities, counties, schools districts and the state.

SB 729 (Leno/Steinberg): This bill would require loan servicers to give homeowners a yes or no decision on their loan modification application before beginning the foreclosure process. It also allows homeowners to bring legal action with specified remedies when serious violations occur.

AB 1321 (Wieckowski): This bill would mandate recording of all mortgage deeds/trusts and assignments, and payment of the requisite fees. It would also require that the mortgage note be filed prior to issuing a Notice of Default to ensure that the foreclosing party has the right to foreclose.
"I have provided copies of these legislative proposals to the managers of Chase and Bank of America, and asked them to ask upper management to publicly support the measures. Local banks contribute to the community, and we want the Wall Street banks to act like local banks," said Patterson. "There are 60 Million MERS mortgages in our country where the title ownership is questionable. We need to demand a stop to this madness."

All three bills were introduced in February and may be heard as early as this week in committee, according to Around the Capitol. No statements in opposition have yet been registered, however the measures could face stiff opposition from the banking industry.

Or maybe not.

New data reveals the high cost of foreclosures not only to communities, state and local governments, but to lenders themselves.

According the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the average foreclosure costs $77,935--while preventing a foreclosure runs just $3,300.

On a typical foreclosure, the local government loses $19,227 through diminished taxes and fees as home prices fall. Homeowners and neighbors also take a loss in property values. But the biggest hit--$50,000-- is taken by the lender-far higher than the cost of preventing foreclosures.

While some of the figures may be inflated (falling property values are not due solely to foreclosures), Mortgage News Daily none-the-less concludes, "The cost of a foreclosure, it turns out, is pretty staggering and we wonder why lenders and the investors they represent aren't jumping at a solution, any solution, that would allow them to avoid going to foreclosure whenever possible."

See the full report at http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/622008_Foreclosure_Costs.asp.

Original story appears at http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/5733

During a packed City Council meeting, Old Town residents and community activists urged South San Francisco leaders to increase youth programs and pursue other measures to improve safety and security in the mostly Latino, working-class neighborhood, which suffered several violent episodes in the past year that left five people dead and others injured.

Hiring more officers "is good," said Ramon Olmos, the brother of Gonzalo Avalos, one of the victims in a Dec. 30 triple homicide in Old Town, "but please don't forget about helping the kids in this area. We don't need more arrests. We need to help the kids realize that they are valuable and special and can become anything they want."

Residents and members of the South San Francisco Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment also called on the council to build a new neighborhood center for Old Town and install security cameras.

In addition, they wanted the city to increase community policing and hire outreach workers to help deter violence in the neighborhood.

These ideas came out of two large community meetings sponsored by the alliance in the wake of last month's triple slaying, which police suspect was gang-related.

During those meetings, residents expressed the need for youngsters to have additional sports, arts and vocational programs. They also suggested that police can improve community relations and prevent potential problems by walking the neighborhood and talking with residents and shop owners.

In response to the residents' concerns and the troubles that have gripped Old Town, the council approved spending $400,000 from city reserves for a number of strategies in the next two years, including hiring four additional officers to help bolster police presence in the neighborhood.

The money will also go toward forming a community coalition of leaders from Old Town, the school district, nonprofit organizations and other groups, a city staff report said. The coalition will develop a plan detailing crime-prevention methods, measures to strengthen relations between neighborhoods and police, and ways to foster civic engagement.

In the December killings, a shooter or shooters fatally gunned down Hector Flores, 20; Avalos, 19; and Omar Cortez, 18, all of South San Francisco, along Eighth Lane near Linden Avenue. Three juveniles also suffered gunshot wounds.

In the same area, Ronald Figueroa, 29, of Belmont, was shot to death in March and South San Francisco High freshman Jose Manuel Lopez, 15, was killed in May.

Mayor Kevin Mullin described the funding approved Wednesday night as an appropriate use of reserve money. The city is expected in the near future to consider additional funds to continue the effort in Old Town for multiple years.

"Reserves are for emergencies and crises," Mullin said, "and I believe this constitutes a crisis in the Old Town neighborhood."

Contact Neil Gonzales at 650-348-4338.

Link to San Mateo County Times Story

Peggy and 21 other homeowners -- including an 85-year-old woman -- were arrested at Chase Bank near 4th and Hope Street about 1:30 pm today, taking to the streets in desperation.

"These banks are terrorists," said Peggy, who is slated to lose her house three days before Christmas. "They terrorize us by threatening to take our homes."

Her predicament has caused her so much stress that she dropped all of her holiday plans to focus on saving her home.

"I am definitely not in the (Christmas) spirit," said the 52-year-old former accounts payable representative.

OneWest spokesperson Diane Henry was not available for comment.

Peggy was one of 200 protestors who joined the social justice group, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, for today's "move in," where homeowners attempted to move themselves -- and their furniture - into Chase Bank downtown, as a way to shed light on the foreclosure crisis.

Peggy, who was arrested with 21 other homeowners, was released later today.

The protest coincided with a recent announcement that the nation's six biggest banks would be paying out $143 million in bonuses this year.

"We bailed the banks and they are the culprits behind the collapse," Peggy said. "We have to change policy."

OneWest's decision to foreclose on the Mears' home during a loan modification process may be despicable, but it isn't against the law.

California and other "non-judicial" states allow lenders to foreclose on property without having to go through the court system.

As a result, lenders can circumvent legal tools like affidavits that prove that a borrower's payments and documents are in order before taking their property.

This continues to be the case in hard-hit San Bernadino, Riverside, Stockton and Merced and elsewhere, despite homeowners paying their mortgages on time or showing a stable income.

In 2009, California lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1137, a measure restricting lenders from foreclosing without showing good faith in negotiations, to provide some relief to homeowners.

But without stringent enforcement rules, the Alliance said it did nothing to keep the banks from foreclosing on their homes.

"The modifications continued to not happen," said Christina Livingston, Deputy Director for the group.

Legislators applied additional pressure on lenders by imposing a foreclosure moratorium that same year.

But she said lenders easily navigated around that too, by simply granting loan modifications that were a dollar less than the original amount.

As a consequence, people have been losing their homes despite "doing everything they were told to do," she added.

With all of the bad publicity, banks had started to pull back a bit from foreclosing on people's homes last month.

But that will most likely be short lived.

Livingston predicts an upswing in foreclosures, as adjustable mortgage rates are re-set and the economy continues to flounder.

In the meantime, Peggy and other disgruntled homeowners have no plans to let down and will continue to fight to keep their homes.

"We have to stand up," she said. "Your home is your greatest asset."

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO ACCE IN SUPPORT THE HOME DEFENDERS

"Dozens more demonstrators chanted and marched on a nearby sidewalk holding sighs that said "Stop Bank Greed, Save Our Neighborhoods" as the 12 men and 10 women were taken into custody.

Detective Gus Villanueva said there were no injuries to police or protesters, who would be cited for trespassing and released.

Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment member David Mazariegos said the demonstrators hoped to bring attention to the plight of people who were unjustly losing their homes.

He said banks' failure to modify many borrowers' loans puts them in violation of the Home Affordable Modification Program in which lenders agreed to participate as part of the bank bailout.

"The banks are not helping anyone stay in their homes," Mazariegos said. "It's highway robbery, what they're doing to these people."

ACCE director Amy Schur said the groups were singling out JPMorgan Chase & Co. because most of the borrowers whose foreclosures and evictions they are contesting are serviced by that bank.

A Chase spokeswoman did not immediately return a phone call Thursday.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO ACCE IN SUPPORT THE HOME DEFENDERS

Throughout American history, progressive protest movements have started with local actions and spread to other places as the word spreads, momentum builds, media pays attention, and politicians wake up.

No issue gets at corporate America's inordinate influence than the epidemic of home foreclosures. In response, a David vs. Goliath battle is developing this holiday season between hard-working families facing foreclosure and banking giants such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase.

Fed up with Wall Street's stranglehold on our political system, community groups around the country are mounting a protest movement to stop the epidemic of foreclosures. They expect that a wave of protests across the country will help focus public anger, mobilize angry homeowners, force banks to halt the evictions and pressure local, state and national politicians to adopt stronger laws to hold banks accountable for consumer abuses.

For example, in Los Angeles next Thursday, December 16, members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) -- a statewide community organizing group -- will sponsor a demonstration at a major bank that will include civil disobedience and probably arrests.

The Los Angeles action is part of a burgeoning national movement to reign in the political power of the banking industry -- the corporate sector most responsible for the current recession. Along with ACCE, groups such as National Peoples Action, the PICO national organizing network, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are mobilizing actions demanding that banks change their practices.

"A small group of rich, greedy bankers crashed the economy and got bailed out by tax payers," explained Peggy Mears, a Fontana homeowner and ACCE campaign leader. "Now the banks are making unprecedented profits. At a time of year when banks are distributing outrageous bonuses to the their top executives, they are kicking more and more families out of their homes. This has to stop."

Despite record profits -- due in large part to the federal bail-outs -- banks are not only pushing families out of their homes but are also refusing to make loans to businesses to create jobs.

Polls show that there is widespread public anger against Wall Street. Americans generally support strong bank reform measures -- consumer protections, requirements that banks renegotiate mortgages for families facing foreclosure, limits on the size of banks (so that they are not "too big to fail"), and new regulations against Wall Street gambling with default swaps and derivatives.

The shake-out of the American economy has left a handful of large banks at the pinnacle of the American corporate power structure. As a growing number of banks have collapsed and been gobbled up by larger institutions, the top six banks -- Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) control 79% of total assets ($9.4 trillion out of $12 trillion).

Those six mega-banks are on pace to pay out $143 billion in bonuses and compensation to their top executives this year, which is higher than any year on record except 2007.

Nationwide, about three million families are facing foreclosure this year and 500,000 families have already been pushed out of their homes. Many of them are innocent victims of fraud, deception, and predatory practices. The largest banks are the biggest culprits, responsible for most of the foreclosures.

Despite the new financial reform bill passed in Congress last summer, and the Obama administration's efforts to encourage banks to renegotiate delinquent mortgages with homeowners (though only a voluntary basis), the financial industry continues to abuse homeowners.

Working class and middle class homeowners are facing holiday lockouts from their homes. In California, over 15,000 families face foreclosure every month.

Thursday's protest in LA is part of what the ACCE Home Defenders League is calling Stand Up for the American Dream Day. Families facing foreclosure and/or eviction over the next month will "move in" to a local bank building accompanied by a broad coalition of supporters from the religious community, labor unions, and community groups. Their goal is to put a human face on the failure of big banks to assist hardworking homeowners that are about to lose their homes over the holidays.

One of these families is headed by William and Esperanza Casco, owners of a small business. They've raised their three children in their Long Beach home of 17 years. When their bank, Washington Mutual, was being acquired by JP Morgan Chase, a paperwork error led to the Cascos being offered a lowered payment that they did not need. One day the Cascos received a notice that they were over $50,000 in arrears, even though they never missed a payment. Two months ago, the bank sold their home. Now the Cascos are now facing the prospect of being evicted over the holidays.

Like many families facing foreclosure, the Cascos did nothing wrong. They have the ability and desire to pay off their loans, and they followed all the rules, but their banks are ignoring them.

Now, many of these families are fighting back. They won't let their homes -- their most important investment and source of security -- be taken because banks are changing the rules or messing up the paperwork.

The six banking giants have ignored growing calls for policy changes. The activists are not only targeting the nation's largest banks, but also pushing for stronger laws to protect consumers.

They want to expand local court programs that require lenders to participate in mediation with homeowners. In California and elsewhere, the program has helped homeowners avoid foreclosure by getting lenders to agree to permanent loan modifications. ACCE is advocating legislation in California to require banks to negotiate with homeowners to modify loans before they can begin foreclosure proceedings. ACCE is also part of a growing national movement demanding that banks reduce mortgage principal for homeowners who are "under water" -- whose mortgages are worth less than their homes' values because of the unprecedented drop in home prices.

The ACCE protest will begin at 11:30 am on Thursday, December 16th. To find out details, e-mail ACCE organizer Peter Kuhns at pkuhns@calorganize.org.

Link to original story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/los-angeles-homeowners-ta_b_795665.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=573367,b=facebook

Joining with her friends and neighbors Nov. 12, just a few hours before the property was to be sold, she staged a protest at US Bank offices in Oakland, chanting "Stop the auction, stop the sale today!"

She and her friends showed up in person ask for more time, to make sure that the bank could not avoid listening. Providing support were members of the Oakland chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), which is working to resist foreclosures.

There was no manager at the bank and no mortgage office. So far, no one at US Bank had sat down with her to discuss renegotiating her mortgage, she said, although she says that federal law requires someone at the bank to meet with her face to face.

Over the months, Neidhardt said, she has been bounced from department to department, asked for utility bills, pay stubs, tax forms, always one more piece of paper, and told after they received everything, then they would talk with her. But it never happened.

Neidhardt paid her mortgage for the past two decades operating her own graphic design business, which closed during the economic downtown. Now, she has three part-time jobs, including substitute teaching, but the bank does not consider the employment to be stable enough.
"I paid my mortgage with contract work for 23 years, but the bank doesn't like the contract work I am doing now, and they think it's not enough," she said.

Bank clerks on Friday at first refused to call a manager at another branch. They did try, however, to get the dozen protesters out of the bank by calling security and police, who stood by and watched.

Finally, a teller put Neidhardt in contact with Regional Manager Helen Anderson. Neidhardt agreed to take her angry friends outside to give the manager time to call the foreclosures department to take her house off the auction.

Finally, the protest was successful. The auction was postponed for one month, though a woman named Jennifer in Media Relations she could not comment on what will happen next and would not discuss the details of the case.
Neidhardt is meeting with legal advisers, her neighbors and AACE to decide what she will to encourage the bank to renegotiate her loan.

To contact Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), call (510)269-4692 and go to extension 2 for the Home Defenders League.

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Link: http://content.postnewsgroup.com/?p=10398