National protest confronts mortgage bankers in D.C.

A delegation of Detroit activists traveled to Washington, D.C., on April 16 to participate in the national demonstration called by the Ad Hoc Network to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions. The action took place outside the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Policy Summit held in a hotel just two blocks away from Capitol Hill.

Activists stop eviction in Detroit, April 17. Photo: Agnes Hitchcock

Chanting, “Mortgage bankers lie and cheat, people get thrown out on the street,” a large crowd of protestors coming from New York, Baltimore, North Carolina, Florida, Boston and other places hit hard by the foreclosure crises like Detroit marched to the venue of the Mortgage Bankers meeting, the Washington Court Hotel, and immediately blocked the hotel’s driveway and entrance.

Hiding inside the hotel were several hundred mortgage bankers, including top executives of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Countrywide Finance, JP Morgan Chase and most of the other banks that have been evicting millions of people from their homes.

Scores of D.C. Metro police and private security personal positioned themselves in front of and around the hotel, as victims of home foreclosures testified, turning the protest into a public hearing against the actions of the mortgage bankers meeting inside.

WW photo: Abayomi Azikiwe

People who were outside the Washington Court Hotel provided firsthand accounts of how their households and communities have been devastated by the mortgage banking crisis that has rendered at least two million dwellings vacant throughout the country.

Sandra Hines of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) told the security personnel and bankers standing outside the hotel where the summit was being held, that “You may think this is funny, but this crisis impacts people everyday in the city of Detroit.”

Hines, who is a former Detroit Public School social worker, ran a grassroots campaign for a district seat on the local school board and was subsequently evicted from her childhood home as a result of predatory lending.

Also addressing the protest, organized by the newly formed National Ad Hoc Network To Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, were the Rev. Grayland Hagler, a leader of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation Of America (NACA); the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus; Brenda Stokely of the Katrina/Rita Survivors Network; Pam Africa of the Families and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; and Tyneisha Bowens of Fight Imperialism—Stand Together (FIST).

As soon as the MECAWI delegation returned to Detroit on April 17, a call went out about a young woman being evicted in the heavily depressed Linwood Corridor area on the city’s west side. The homeowner has three children and an 84-year-old mother, whose wheelchair was thrown out of the home by thugs acting on behalf of the Wayne County bailiffs who enforce the mortgage banker’s evictions against hundreds of families throughout the region everyday. It is estimated that approximately 72,000 homes are in foreclosure in southeastern Michigan alone.

Around 50 activists went to the young woman’s home and took the furniture, appliances, clothes, family photos and documents and moved them back into the house. These household items had been dragged out of the home and thrown violently into a dumpster parked outside the property.

Furniture and appliances were broken in the eviction process. Food bought for the children living at the home was thrown out. Telephone lines were ripped out and a bathroom sink was knocked from the wall and thrown outside in the yard by the agents hired to carry out the bidding of the mortgage bankers, who incidentally are represented by a Wall Street-based security firm.

As a result of the national demonstration in Washington, D.C., and the announcement by Michigan State Sen. Hansen Clarke that he would introduce legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on foreclosures in the state, MECAWI called for a meeting to press for the formation of a broader coalition to push for the passage of the bill.

The meeting was attended by State Sen. Hansen Clarke and members of his staff along with other community activists in the areas of housing, religion, education and labor. The Rev. Edward Rowe, pastor of the Central United Methodist Church, where the meeting was held in downtown Detroit, pledged office space to house the new coalition which constituted itself as the Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions.

Coalition committees were established in the areas of eviction reversals, legal strategies, publicity, outreach and office staffing. Data is being accumulated on city councils, county commissions, community organizations and other institutions throughout the Detroit metropolitan area and the state. This data will be utilized in a massive mobilization campaign to win the moratorium.

Atty. Jerome Goldberg, along with another lawyer, Vanessa Fluker, discussed the persistent efforts on the part of the mortgage bankers to drive thousands from their homes in the region.

“This moratorium will not be won through traditional lobbying but will be achieved through putting people in the streets throughout the state and at the capital in Lansing,” said David Sole, president of UAW Local 2334. Sole, who committed himself to work on the outreach committee for the new coalition, said that seven homes were vacant as a result of foreclosures on his block alone on the east side of the city.

A follow-up meeting of the Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions will be held on Saturday, May 3 at 3:00 p.m. at Central United Methodist Church. By this time the activists hope to have set up the office at the church with a phone and donated equipment. A team of volunteers will staff the office.

The Michigan coalition will be working with the national network that organized the April 16 protest in Washington to plan follow-up actions in June and beyond as the mass struggle against the foreclosures grows wider and stronger.

Azikiwe is editor of the Pan-African News Wire.