Struggle intensifies to save workers’ homes

A report released April 14 by RealtyTrac reveals that the foreclosure crisis is deeper and broader than ever. Another report by the Congressional Oversight Panel formed to oversee the government’s response to the crisis, which harshly criticized the Treasury Department’s efforts as “ineffective,” shows that some in the capitalist class are very worried.

According to RealtyTrac, 932,234 homeowners either received a default or auction notice or were repossessed by banks in the first quarter of this year — 16 percent more than the first quarter of 2009. Scheduled auctions totaled 369,491 — the largest number ever. (realtytrac.com)

More statistics were offered up by the Congressional Oversight Panel report: There have been 200,000 foreclosure starts per month; a whopping one in four homeowners are now “underwater”; and 6 million borrowers are more than 60 days behind on mortgage payments. (cop.senate.gov)

The unusually critical tone of the Congressional Oversight Panel report reflects not only the growing angst of a section of the capitalist class, but also rising frustration with the banks. “For every family that Treasury has helped into a sustained modification, 10 other families have lost their home,” chided Elizabeth Warren, the panel’s chairperson. “Treasury’s response is lagging behind the pace of the crisis, and it also seems clear that Treasury’s programs will not reach the overwhelming majority of homeowners in trouble,” she added. (Washington Post, April 15)

But the banks don’t want to lower the value of the mortgages they own, which is now part of the Obama administration’s program to resolve the crisis. And the top officers of the U.S. Treasury Department are former big bankers. It should be no surprise to anyone that giving them the responsibility of getting the banks to make sacrifices in the interest of the capitalist class as a whole would yield results that are ineffective.

Any truly effective strategy will involve pushing back the giant banks and mortgage companies through a mass struggle in the streets.

In Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles and other cities, grassroots organizations have been working against foreclosures and have had some real success. In many cases they’ve forced banks and mortgage companies to adjust mortgages by having demonstrations and press conferences that exposed their illegal practices and embarrassed them. In quite a few cases they’ve managed to stop foreclosures and evictions.

In Detroit, activists with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs also lend their legal expertise to help individuals wade through the necessary steps of getting a mortgage adjusted.

In Los Angeles, Martha Rojas, a long-time union and community activist, has dedicated herself to helping people in the largely Mexican and Spanish-speaking communities of the region to get through the arduous process.

Organizers are also working to popularize a three-point program that demands city, state and federal governments declare a state of emergency, impose a two-year moratorium that forbids banks and mortgage companies from foreclosing, and fund a massive Works-Progress-

Administration-style jobs program. These demands distinguish a working-class approach from one that favors Wall Street and big banks.

The Detroit organizers have gotten a resolution through city council for a moratorium. They have also bused activists to the capital city of Lansing two years in a row to demand the governor declare a state of emergency in order to gain the legal wherewithal to impose a two-year moratorium.

Recently activists and organizations in Los Angeles, including Gloria Saucedo, the leader of Hermandad Mexicano Trans-Nacional; Rosie Martinez of the Labor Community Coalition of Local 721 SEIU; John Parker of the Bail Out the People Movement; and organizers from BAYAN-USA have taken note of the campaign in Michigan and adopted similar demands as the basis for their ongoing campaign.

They’ve elicited the help of a progressive city council member to begin the process of getting a resolution at the city level and have taken a busload of activists — many facing foreclosures — to Sacramento, where they demonstrated in front of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office to demand that he declare a state of emergency.

On April 29 these activists will protest in Norwalk, Calif., on the plaza in front of a Los Angeles County courthouse. This is the site of an outdoor auction of foreclosed properties, where hundreds of homes that have been seized by the banks are sold to the highest bidder.

This crisis is not because the banks gave mortgages to people who didn’t deserve them. The racist subprime mortgage crisis gouged workers in order for banks and lenders to maximize their profits. Creative and militant working-class actions that confront the banks are the real solution.