Reply #58: Stop the banksters: Michigan county weighs foreclosure moratorium [View All]

http://peoplesworld.org/stop-the-banksters-michigan-county-weighs-foreclosure-moratorium/

If common sense, instead of banks, ruled the nation, a solution to the foreclosure crisis would have been found long ago...That point was driven home over and over during a June 13 public hearing on a measure to stop the foreclosure "madness." Members of the Wayne County Board of Commissioners listened as speakers pressed for adoption of the Homeowner Protection and Neighborhood Preservation Act, introduced by Commissioner Martha Scott.

It would demand an independent audit of foreclosure sales to determine if fraudulent practices were used by banks and mortgage servicers, have the sheriff implement a moratorium on sales of occupied homes, and place the issue of implementing such a moratorium on the November 8, 2011, ballot.

Miguel Foster, director of the United Auto Workers Civil Rights and Community Services Department, told commissioners his union and its president, Bob King, support this act. Foster noted that in 2010, there were 100,000 foreclosures in Michigan and one-fourth of those were in Wayne County, where Detroit is located. He called it an "economic and human catastrophe" affecting many of his union's members.

Many at the hearing expressed outrage at the fact that banks have more of an incentive to force people out of their homes than to keep a roof over the heads of families and children...Rowe emphasized that banks were misusing "our" money as most loans are government-guaranteed and banks were given a $700 billion bailout with our tax dollars. In effect we are "foreclosing on ourselves," he said.