Forum Post: Direct Action to Stop House Foreclosures and Evictions
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 11, 2011, 5:19 a.m. EST by rarara
(27)
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An idea for direct action? How about preventing house foreclosures and evictions? This has been going on in Spain, Greece, Ireland and in the US as well. What if the Occupy Wall Street protests threw support behind such activities, and maybe even organized similar ones? This might help move the protests along, with concrete actions and targets, and results! (Here is a link to more information: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/greeks-also-disrupting-foreclosure-auctions.html )
I personally think it would be a great idea if our people helped break up foreclosures. First off, since we're developing a good-sized base in and around a lot of the big cities, it would definitely be feasible to create a sub-section of the forum with a list of foreclosure times and dates as they become available. Then, when people see foreclosures near them they can meet up and step in.
That would be great! Maybe someone could bring up the topic at the next assembly? Rather than a list of foreclosures, an organized action to mobilize people to prevent a foreclosure could really help the protests become a social force, and such solidarity actions could help build relationships with people in the community.
I will agree that there is a problem with foreclosures, especially the massive number of them, however what you are proposing does nothing.
the problem is that sub prime mortgages were always going to fail, they allowed someone who worked as a "minimum wage slave" to be able to buy a house far beyond their means. this meant that someone who could only afford to buy a house worth say $60,000 dollars was actually buying a house worth $120,000 or more. Then when the mortgage repayments went up after 10 years or so 9as was often stated in the contract), they just walked away from the house and stopped paying for it entirely. This left the banks holding onto a house note that was producing nothing, and was actually going to cost them in the long run. So they foreclose on the house and sell it for cheap in order to try and recoup some of that money.
the only people who are to blame for having their house foreclosed on them are the buyers. Now if they had understood that this was going to happen (read the contract), of if they had stuck to a budget of which they knew they could afford only a certain repayment amount a month, then they would never have been foreclosed.
Take for example a couple I know well, in 2007 they brought a house, they knew that they could only afford a max repayment of $400 a month, so that is the price range they looked at. When they went to apply for a mortgage, they were told they were per-approved for a mortgage of $200,000. A figure they KNEW they could never afford. So they brought a house with maximum repayments of $400 a month, and the value of the house was only $50,000. Net result, no foreclosure.
Now as to how the sub-prime market came about, for that you will need to look at Bill Clinton, for he was the one who signed the bill into effect.
I'm afraid you've got the oversimplified version of this mess.
Sub-prime loans were not all "liars loans" or the silly loans you correctly describe. The early sub-prime loans did not go bad in large numbers. They were slightly more risky and slightly more expensive, but they nearly all got paid off.
Then with deregulation under Bush, they degenerated to outright fraud. Read "The Big Con" for details. Some buyers were greedy, some were fools, but many were duped. At some mortgage brokerage shops, a third of the loans were sub-prime to people who qualified for prime loans, but were gouged with sky-high fees and higher interest.
Local advocacy groups and some states attorneys general tried to clean this up, but were stopped at the Federal level by Bush, with support from some senators of both parties. Bush had a formal goal of 5.5 million additional home loans during his terms. Remember the Ownership Society?
The rates of default started low for earlier loans, but rose with each year starting in 2002, until most loans were bad from soon after signing in 2007. Then the crash.
By then some mortgage broker companies routinely falsified documents, often without the knowledge of the borrowers. An amazing mess that made huge fortunes for brokers and their bosses! They walked away with a bundle.
Good idea. I support that. But please keep the info at the following link in mind as you consider engaging in direct action. Timing is everything. http://occupywallst.org/forum/how-we-win-one-perspective-on-where-we-go-from-her/