Coalition presses moratorium demand to mayor

Sixteen of the many activists from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions demonstrating on Oct. 27 left the cold rain and entered City Hall to meet with Coit Cook Ford III, interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr.’s executive assistant for public policy.

Their demands: that Mayor Cockrel declare a state of economic emergency in the city and formally apply to Gov. Jennifer Granholm for the same declaration and a two-year moratorium on foreclosures in Detroit.

Detroiters suffer from high poverty and unemployment rates, as well as a high number of foreclosures caused by the racist and criminal subprime lending fiasco. Ten percent of homeowners in Detroit neighborhoods are or were in foreclosure, with some neighborhoods at 17 percent. Detroit has 18 percent vacant homes, second in the country only to New Orleans with 33 percent abandoned homes, according to an Aug. 30 New York Times article.

Coalition activists had given Mayor Cockrel several letters over recent weeks requesting a meeting to discuss the foreclosure crisis in the city and informing him that under Michigan law he has the authority as mayor to take the measures raised by the coalition.

Cockrel had ignored the letters until the coalition leafleted two community meetings Cockrel hosted and took the floor at one of them. This was despite being constantly harassed by the mayor’s security team. The audience’s enthusiastic response to the moratorium idea forced the mayor to grant the meeting.

In the waiting room at the mayor’s office on Oct. 27, the delegation was told that only three people could meet with Ford and the rest had to leave. When Ford failed to show up because he was attending a funeral of a prominent Detroiter, the delegation began a sit-in. Ford eventually called the coalition to say he would meet with organizers at their office the next day.

On Oct. 28 a group of 20 community organizers met with Ford at the coalition’s office at Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. People’s attorney Jerry Goldberg started the discussion by giving Ford an overview of the coalition’s history and the legal research proving the feasibility of declaring a state of economic emergency in Detroit and applying to the governor for a foreclosure moratorium.

Goldberg reminded him that Mayor Coleman A. Young had the political courage in 1982 to side with the people when he declared a state of hunger emergency in the city, which in part resulted in monthly commodity food distributions that lasted for 17 years.

Ford stated: “There’s no question that Mayor Cockrel understands the human side of this—he’s a family man and all he needs to do is put himself in that position. He recognizes and supports the idea that this is a crisis, and it is one of his priority issues.”

Ford explained that it was his job to make a recommendation to the mayor after “forensically examining” the issue of a moratorium. Ford stated he “told the mayor that a foreclosure moratorium is a needed policy for the City,” but he “[didn’t] agree with the terms or the length” proposed by the coalition.

Ford’s other comments showed he was mainly concerned with the moratorium’s potential “impact on credit” in the city. He stated that a moratorium could result in “not having the credit resources to build a new city.” Coalition activists countered him, boldly demanding the mayor side with the people over the banks and mortgage companies that have already devastated Detroit.

Coalition leader Abayomi Azikiwe told Ford, “Mayor Cockrel and the city administration need to step up and take on the foreclosure crisis as other cities are doing, like San Diego, Cleveland, and Buffalo that have sued the mortgage lenders.”

Rev. Ed Rowe, pastor of Central United Methodist Church and coalition co-founder, stated, “We welcome a confrontation with the banks and lenders. We’re not afraid to have a public discourse on the moratorium issue.”

Mary Eady told her painful story. She faces imminent eviction from her southwest Detroit home of over 45 years. The loan she took out from Wells Fargo to make home repairs had an interest rate of 10.5 percent. She went into default, though she continually tried to talk to Wells Fargo to work out a loan modification, which the bank refused.

Eady was able to get a reverse mortgage to pay two-thirds of the arrearage, more than the current value of her home, but the bank said no. In October Wells Fargo received a $25-billion handout from the federal government, which the bank said it didn’t need.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition agreed with Ford on a Nov. 5 deadline to hear from Mayor Cockrel about declaring a state of emergency and foreclosure moratorium in Detroit. Organizers have announced another demonstration for Nov. 20 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center to keep the heat on the mayor.