Because of mass pressure
County leaders support foreclosure moratorium
Published Jun 22, 2011 9:40 PM
Special to Workers World
Detroit
One hundred fifty people attended an evening hearing on June 13 of the Wayne
County Commission Ways and Means Committee to express their support for the
Homeowner Protection and Neighborhood Preservation Act introduced by
Commissioner Martha G. Scott at the initiative of the People Before Banks
Coalition.
The act calls on the county to conduct an investigation of the impact of
mortgage fraud and racist predatory lending in Michigan’s Wayne County,
which includes the city of Detroit. It urges the sheriff to place a one-year
moratorium on foreclosure sales in Wayne County, and to put the issue of the
sheriff placing such a moratorium on the November ballot.
At the hearing, powerful testimony was given by homeowners who have lost their
homes in foreclosure and neighborhood residents who told of the massive blight
and loss of property values due to the foreclosure epidemic.
Auto Workers Civil Rights chair Miguel Foster read a statement on behalf of the
union in support of the act. The Rev. David Bullock, chair of Operation PUSH,
and the Rev. Ed Rowe, pastor of Central United Methodist Church, spoke out
forcefully in support of a foreclosure moratorium, as did progressive attorneys
from Michigan Legal Services, the United Community Housing Coalition and the
Legal Aid and Defenders Office who fight every day in court on behalf of those
losing their homes.
The powerful testimony forced every Wayne County Commissioner who attended the
hearing to publicly express their support for the act, a turnaround from the
wavering that had been previously noted. While the act would not be binding on
the sheriff, Commissioner Bernard Parker noted that if the sheriff refused to
implement the foreclosure moratorium the commission could exert pressure
through its control of his budget.
At a meeting with coalition activists later that week Sheriff Benny Napoleon
pledged his neutrality on the commission vote and the public referendum on the
foreclosure moratorium to give an opportunity for the people to be heard on
this critical issue. Coalition activists explained to the sheriff that the
resolution and referendum would gather national attention, and would put him in
a strong position to resist any attempts by the banks and financial
institutions to derail the foreclosure moratorium after it was implemented.
Wayne County has been one the hardest-hit counties by the foreclosure epidemic.
More than 69,000 homes in the Detroit area received delinquency or foreclosure
notices in 2009 (foreclosuredeals.com Feb. 9, 2010) and metropolitan Detroit
recorded 43,541 foreclosures in 2010, the third highest number of any
metropolitan area in the U.S. (Detroit News, Jan. 27) The foreclosures are
continuing unabated, with Realtytrac reporting over 2,700 foreclosure filings
in Wayne County in April.
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