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Activists demand moratorium on foreclosures, layoffs

The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice has begun a grassroots campaign demanding that Gov. Jennifer Granholm use her emergency powers under Michigan law to declare a State of Economic Emergency and impose a moratorium to stop foreclosures, utility shut-offs, evictions, school shutdowns, plant closings and layoffs.

MECAWI activists distributed a broadsheet on this campaign at the African World Festival in downtown Detroit and are beginning to circulate it statewide as well. The broadsheet states in part:

“Michigan is among the leaders in the nation in foreclosures. Forty-seven thousand households have had their water shut off in Detroit, and tens of thousands of homes statewide are without heat and/or electricity. Child poverty in Michigan has risen statewide to nearly 20 percent, and almost 50 percent in Detroit. Schools, hospitals, factories are shutting down in unprecedented numbers.”

The broadsheet notes the legal basis for turning this situation around: “Three separate Michigan statutes—MCL 10.31 et.seq., 10.85 et.seq. and 30.401 et.seq.—mandate that the governor declare a State of Emergency during periods of crisis, natural or ‘man-made,’ and provide special powers to meet the crisis. We demand that Gov. Granholm utilize these emergency powers to impose an Emergency Moratorium.”

The MECAWI broadsheet points out: “During the 1930s the state legislature utilized its emergency powers to pass the Mortgage Moratorium Act, Act No. 98, Pub. Acts 1933. The Act extended the redemption period during which homeowners could not have their property taken from them after foreclosure, from six months to five years.

“In Russell v. Battle Creek Lumber Co., 265 Mich. 649, 649-650 (Mich. 1934), the Mortgage Moratorium Act was upheld as constitutional by the Michigan Supreme Court, based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (54 Sup. Ct. 231, 88 A.L.R. 1481), which upheld a similar moratorium passed in Minnesota.”

In the Blaisdell decision, the Supreme Court cited and approved the holding of Minnesota’s Supreme Court, which said that “the economic emergency which threatened ‘the loss of homes and lands which furnish those in possession the necessary shelter and means of subsistence’ was a ‘potent cause’ for the enactment of the statute.” The Supreme Court explicitly held that the states’ right to take emergency measures to protect the health and welfare of the people can supersede private contracts.

moratorium on foreclosures

On April 4 a coalition of national civil-rights groups—including the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, NAACP, National Fair Housing Alliance, National Council of La Raza, and the Center for Responsible Lending—issued a call for a six-month national moratorium on sub-prime mortgage foreclosures.

The mortgage foreclosure crisis is deepening because banks and other financial institutions are tightening credit. The crisis is extending from the sub-prime sector, which hits people of color the hardest due to the racist policies of the banks and lending institutions, to the general working-class population.

This has already happened in Michigan, where the bulk of foreclosures are of so-called prime mortgages, which workers who have been laid off, cut back, or forced into early retirement can no longer pay. Michigan has one of the highest rates of housing foreclosure in the country. One out of every 29 households in Wayne County faces foreclosure. This is second in the country only to Stockton, Calif., where one out of 27 homes is in foreclosure. (Detroit News, Aug. 15)

According to a recent article in the Detroit News, Wayne County’s foreclosure rate is up 99 percent from one year ago. The suburbs are also being hard hit: Oakland County’s foreclosure rate is up 120 percent from last year, and Macomb County’s rate is up 74 percent. Other areas being pummeled with high foreclosures include Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, Cleveland and Memphis. (Aug. 15)

The credit crisis is sharpening the already deep crisis for auto workers as they head into contract negotiations, contributing to a decline in auto sales and leading to higher interest rates for the heavily indebted auto companies—for which they will try to make up by intensifying their drive for wage and benefit cuts.

Every state constitution and/or legislature invests emergency powers in its officials to declare a state of emergency during a period of economic disaster. In the 1930s approximately 25 states declared economic emergencies and imposed moratoriums on foreclosures. It is time to begin a campaign for a national moratorium on all foreclosures to meet the deepening capitalist crisis.

be used for human needs

The MECAWI broadsheet notes how an emergency moratorium would give people a chance to survive during the economic catastrophe facing the working class in Michigan while they strategize on how to fight to rebuild the state and guarantee the right to jobs, housing, health care and quality education for all. It points out that “more tax breaks for big business—the same corporations that have created this catastrophe with plant closings and lay-offs—is not the answer.”

In response to Granholm and all the other politicians in Michigan who cry that there’s simply no money to fund human needs, the broadsheet points out: “This is the richest country in the world. There is plenty of money to fund human needs. The problem is that rather than spending money to help the working class survive the economic disaster we are facing, the money is being wasted on an illegal, immoral, doomed war in Iraq.

“According to the National Priorities Project, the war on Iraq has cost the people of the United States more than $450 billion. And the people of Michigan, confronted with the worst economic crisis since the depression, have been taxed to the tune of $12 billion to fund the Iraq disaster.

“The next time Gov. Granholm, Sens. Levin or Stabenow, or your local mayor or councilperson tells you they have to cut back on health care or schools or jobs programs, here are some figures to throw back at them: The $12 billion robbed from the people of Michigan to fund the illegal war in Iraq could be used instead to build 107,988 new housing units; place 1,588,520 children in Head Start; fund 581,410 four-year full-time college scholarships; pay the health-care costs of 7,181,636 children for one year; and pay the salaries of 207,845 public school teachers.

“That’s just the money stolen from us to pay for the Iraq war. It doesn’t include the billions spent on the occupation of Afghanistan. In addition, the Pentagon gets $500 billion a year for bombs and weapons of mass destruction above and beyond the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And how about the hundreds of billions in corporate welfare doled out every day?”

MECAWI hopes to help galvanize a struggle in response to the deepening economic crisis facing workers in Michigan. It is organizing people from around the state to attend the National March on Washington Sept. 29, to “demand an end to the war on Iraq, bring the troops home now, restore the $450 billion stolen from the people of the U.S. for the war and use those funds for human needs at home, not for wars abroad.”

To get involved in the MECAWI campaign for a Moratorium on foreclosures, etc., call (313) 319-0870, email moratorium@sbcglobal.net, and visit www.mecawi.org.