Hold Wall Street Accountable! Occupy Our Homes Week of Action, May 18-25

Via OccupyOurHomes.org and OccupyWallSt.org:

Over the last few years, homeowners and residents around the country have taken a stand against the banks and fought foreclosures and evictions. The growing network of Occupy Our Homes supporters have signed petitions, made phone calls, and showed up to events to help families stay in their homes. Dozens of homeowners around the country have won their fights, but the crisis is far from over.

Communities have been destroyed as millions of families have already lost their homes to foreclosure, while millions more are underwater on their mortgages. The big banks are bigger and more powerful than ever. To date, no high level Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for their crimes, such as mortgage fraud and predatory lending. US attorney general, Eric Holder even admitted recently that in the administration's eyes, the banks are not only ‘too big to fail,’ they're now ‘too big to jail.’

As a new housing bubble fueled by Wall Street speculation is forming, it's clear that the financial industry didn't learn their lesson from the last mess. It's more important than ever for us to take action to demand meaningful relief for homeowners and prosecutions for the criminals at the top. Only through the power of thousands of organized homeowners taking action in the streets can we make the Attorney General and the President listen. Occupy Our Homes, the Home Defenders League, and others are joining fed-up homeowners who are ready to demand action-- join us the week of May 20th.

Over the next two months, Home Defenders from across the country will have an opportunity to tell their stories and fight back. Some will travel to Washington, DC the week of May 20th to make their voice heard directly at the Department of Justice. Join the fight! Sign up now to fight in your city. Scholarships will be available to attend the Department of Justice Action in Washington DC.

Click here to sign up

Short sales end with the homeowner out of the home. This is the most common "penalty" on banks in the mortgage settlement.

Bloomberg News:

While the banks are stepping up efforts to help borrowers stay in their homes, they are still spending most of the settlement on short sales and forgiveness of home-equity loans that allow them to take bad loans off their books. Profits from new lending are increasing even as regulators enforce penalties for modification missteps and foreclosures pursued with fraudulent or missing documents. Last year, mortgage revenue at the four largest lenders -- Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), and U.S. Bancorp --surpassed the amount they spent on consumer settlements and investor demands they buy back faulty loans.

“The banks have shown a knack for sidestepping government attempts to have them redress their role in the foreclosure crisis and keep people in their homes,” said Arthur Wilmarth, a law professor at George Washington University in the nation’s capital. “A lot of these efforts end up helping the banks, not the homeowners.”

Lets recap: The Big Banks pay a small (Small in Banker dollars, anyways) "penalty" *cough* to the DOJ for fraudulent foreclosure practices, and agree to review their own foreclosures and decide which homeowners will receive aid from the "penalty" funds paid to the DOJ that are allotted to homeowner aid. Then typically, the Banks are going to punish the homeowner with a short sale of their home that A) Results in the homeowner losing their home, and destroys their credit. B)Helps the Bank complete their obligation to the DOJ. and C)Allows the Bank further forgiveness by erasing home equity loans from their books.

The Big Banks have struck a Trifecta with Eric Holder's Department of in-Justice. For troubled homeowners, there is homelessness and despair, and just a small glimmer of hope.

In the fall of 2011, New York's Zuccotti Park grabbed the world's attention as the hub of Occupy Wall Street, a movement that set off a chain of rage against the country's financial and political elite.

Even in the face of police repression and media ridicule, the movement mobilized thousands of people fed up with the deep economic divide in the US. And within two months hundreds of Occupy Wall Street camps swept across the country changing the political discourse in the US.

"People were upset about the economy, people were upset about the foreclosure crisis, people were upset about the bailouts, and about the fact that it looked like elected officials were working for big business rather than for the people who they're supposed to be working for," says activist Max Rameau from Take Back the Land.

This Al Jazeera documentary tells the definitive history of Occupy Wall Street from its early days through the movement's rapid spread up to the brutal crackdown by state authorities.

DemocracyNow!:

The Coalition for the Homeless reports the number of people living in New York City homeless shelters has reached an all-time high of 43,000. Critics attribute the spike in homelessness to the Bloomberg administration’s alleged failure to help move homeless families into permanent affordable housing. Housing advocates say the problem was exacerbated by the city’s cancellation of the "Advantage" apartment rental subsidy, with as many as 8,000 former aid recipients now facing eviction. We get a report from Democracy Now!’s Chantal Berman, who interviewed several aid recipients who could soon lose their homes, and speak to Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst at Coalition for the Homeless in New York City

Full transcript below the fold...

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Fault Lines tells the definitive history of Occupy Wall Street from its early days through the movement's rapid spread up to the brutal crackdown by city officials.

In the fall of 2011, New York's Zuccotti Park grabbed the world’s attention as the hub of Occupy Wall Street, a movement that set off a chain of rage against the country’s financial and political elite.

Even in the face of police repression and media ridicule, the movement mobilized thousands of people fed up with the deep economic divide in the US. And within two months hundreds of Occupy Wall Street camps swept across the country changing the political discourse in the US.

"People were upset about the economy, people were upset about the foreclosure crisis, people were upset about the bailouts, and about the fact that it looked like elected officials were working for big business rather than for the people who they’re supposed to be working for," says activist Max Rameau from Take Back the Land.

[Via]

Members of the community, occupiers, and immigration groups gathered at Olvera Street in Downtown Los Angeles on Sunday to protest the deportation of Blanca Cardenas. Police arrested Cardenas earlier this month after refusing to leave her home, which she and her husband say was illegally foreclosed on by Bank of America. The protest ended peacefully.

IO News: "We're at Placita Olvera. Today is March eleventh, and you're watching Insightout News. Earlier today protesters gathered here at the Placita Olvera in support of recently deported Blanca Cardenas.

Protester: "We know what this is about. This is about Blanca, this is about a broken system with the banks, and the housing crisis, it has to stop. What the banks are doing to the families, it has to come to an end. Too many families are being destroyed, too many children are going homeless over the profits the banks are making."

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CORRECTION: A judge had not handed ownership of the home to the Cardenas, instead they had filed for bankruptcy, which legally prevents any sale of the home until the bankruptcy proceedings are over.

Earlier this week Occupy L.A., foreclosure advocates, family members, and local community, gathered at the Southern California home of Blanca Cardenas to protest her recent eviction and deportation. Police responded in full riot gear, but in the end, there were no arrests made.

Protesters broke into the Cardenas home Tuesday evening demanding that Blanca Cardenas be returned to her family. She was arrested last week when she refused to leave her home. She and her husband had recently won ownership of their home from Bank of America. However, during the legal proceedings, the bank had sold the home to an investor. The investor declared a citizens arrest on Cardenas and LAPD took her into custody.

Police discovered Cardenas did not have proper immigration papers and turned her over to ICE. She is currently staying with relatives in Mexico. The judge ordered that she not return to the states for 20 years.

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