By Rev. Errol Thompson, Pastor New Fellowship Baptist Church
Chairman, PICO United Florida

Last summer, Ray Mercado and his wife began to struggle to keep up with their mortgage payments on their Orlando home. Like responsible homeowners, they reached out to their bank, JP Morgan Chase. Ray – a disabled veteran – estimates that he has spoken to 37 different bank representatives in his quest to get help. A barrier to negotiating an affordable payment: their home is worth $100,000 less than what they bought it for just four years ago.

Ray’s story is all too common. CoreLogic, which tracks negative-equity rates, estimates that 46 percent of mortgage-holders in Florida owe more on their loans than their homes are worth. Only Nevada and Arizona have higher rates of “underwater” homeowners.

Big Wall Street banks like Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase fueled the meteoric rise in housing prices in Florida, making billions of dollars along the way. But when this bubble inevitably went bust — due in large part to reckless lending — they left homeowners and taxpayers to pick up the tab for the resulting foreclosures and billions in negative equity.

These banks enjoyed all of the upsides of the boom while facing little of the consequences of the bust. Any attempt to make them forgive even a modest amount of this negative equity has been met with arguments from Wall Street CEOs that we need to ensure “fairness” in the modification process and warnings about moral hazard.

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Rev. Lucy Kolin
Pastor, Resurrection Lutheran Church, Oakland CA
Oakland Community Organizations, Co-Chair

On a recent weekday afternoon, community, faith and union leaders took city officials on a tour of foreclosed homes in Oakland. What they saw was sobering: family homes, where children once played and birthdays and milestones were once celebrated, are now vacant and blighted property. Neighborhoods have been devastated — their character changed immeasurably by the impact of foreclosures on residents and properties.

The tour was a vivid reminder of the devastating impact of the reckless and fraudulent practices by banks that precipitated the economic meltdown that is affecting families, our city and our state.

It’s not just those who have lost their homes who are feeling the economic impact of mass foreclosure. A recent report issued by SEIU, PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing) California, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), and the California Reinvestment Coalition reports that the estimated 63,000 foreclosures in Alameda County alone between 2008 and 2012 will cost more than $27.6 billion in lost home value to neighbors, $168.7 million in lost property tax revenue, and $582 million in lost revenue to local government.  Statewide, we’re facing a minimum of $650 billion in lost revenue.  This is serious money at a time when we can least afford it.

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Stephanie Gut
Director of Federation Support
PICO National Network

After two days on the ground in Wisconsin, a few things have become clear.

It’s still a real question whether the interests of working- and middle-class families will ultimately come out on top in this fight.  With hundreds and hundreds of people turning out in rural districts for town-hall type meetings, one would think that three senators would eventually be moved to find a compromise, but so far that goal has proven elusive.

The legislature is coming back into session today and a 400-person private security force is being brought into the Capitol.

At town halls across the state, thousands of people have come together to share their stories.  At one meeting, a farmer spoke about driving one-and-a-half hours through a snowstorm to get to the meeting because he wants to protect his family.  An oncology nurse from University of Wisconsin Hospital spoke of protecting her patients and added that she was diagnosed with MS last year, and it was because of her union that she was able to keep her job and get the kind of health care she needs to continue her journey with her patients.

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