Oakland “Miracle” Shows Better Path Than “Hope For Homeowners’” Utter Failure
OAKLAND, Calif. – At 6:00 in the morning on Wednesday, February 4, more than 30 members of ACORN gathered at the home of Eddie and Martha Daniels in West Oakland, armed with prayers, cell phones, and the hope that Wednesday would not be a day in which yet another family who had done no wrong was claimed as a victim of the raging foreclosure crisis. Since 2006, the Daniels had paid their rent each month to their landlord, who had not told them that he was not in turn paying the mortgage on time. The landlord’s lender had foreclosed on the property and terminated the lease, and on Wednesday the Sheriff was scheduled to come to their home and evict the Daniels, a family on the verge becoming another statistic in the national economic catastrophe.
ACORN members rallied their neighbors, spoke with local media, including one radio station that broadcast live from the home, and flooded the Sheriff’s office with calls urging compassion and forbearance of the scheduled eviction. At the same time, ACORN Housing Corporation was working furiously behind the scenes with the lender to negotiate a stay on the eviction, which successfully came through. This remedy alone would put the Daniels among the fortunate few who are able to get reasonable solutions from lenders, but what happened next was truly unique: ACORN Housing Corporation was able to counsel the Daniels and determine their eligibility to apply for a VA loan that would enable them to purchase the very property from which they were almost evicted earlier that day, and the foreclosing lender has agreed to sell.
“This shows the power of communities coming together to fight back against the foreclosures that are taking our homes and ruining our neighborhoods,” said Maude Hurd, ACORN President. “Oakland is showing the nation a new way forward, one in which community-based civil disobedience combined with savvy counseling and advocacy can take a family on the verge of eviction and help them become homeowners. While this kind of same-day miracle is rare today, ACORN believes that hundreds of thousands of families across the country just like the Daniels, innocent renters and predatory lending victims who are losing their homes at a record pace, can fight back by getting organized and defending their homes through old-fashioned community organizing. This system is broken and it’s time we throw a wrench in it.”
The Daniels hope to close on the sale in the coming weeks, and are relieved and thankful to be able to stay in their home. “Yesterday morning, I was so scared to be losing my home,” said Eddie Daniels. “Tonight, I am still sleeping in my own bed under my own roof, and that is no small miracle. I am so grateful and fortunate that my neighbors and ACORN came to defend our home. Millions more families need this kind of help.” Families facing eviction or foreclosure can call ACORN for help at 1-866-67-ACORN or visit www.acorn.org.
As ACORN members celebrate this miraculous victory in Oakland, they mourn the ongoing federal inaction and failure in the face of the foreclosure crisis. Bloomberg News is reporting today that only twenty-five (25) loans have been refinanced through the much-touted Hope for Homeowners program, which was originally expected to help between 300,000 and 400,000 families avoid foreclosure. Hope for Homeowners is the only federal program designed to fight foreclosures created in the year and a half since foreclosures reached record levels.
“Even as the federal government works to correct serious flaws in the program, Hope for Homeowners will still rely on voluntary industry participation, and therefore remain doomed to failure,” said Hurd. “We desperately need changes in federal policy that will force mortgage lenders and servicers to stop unnecessary foreclosures, both by lifting the ban on judicial modifications for primary residences and by requiring bailout recipients to modify loans in an economically rational way, as Citigroup has agreed to do. As even Republicans have recently taken to arguing, no successful economic recovery will be possible without directly targeting the mortgage mess that lies at the heart of our economy’s failure. Across the country, ACORN is working with families to save homes and fight foreclosures, and it sure would be nice to have a federal government doing the same.”