Monday morning, attend hearing on People's Bailout Bill

On Monday, May 11, Rep. Clark's Housing Committee will hold a hearing on the housing portion of the People's Bailout Bill. It has been pulled together into a single bill: HF-2233.

Housing Finance and Policy and Public Health Finance Division
MONDAY, May 11, 2009
10:00 AM
WE SHOULD BE THERE AT 9:45, WHICH MEANS PARK YOUR CAR BY 9:30
State Office Building
Room: 500N (Take the elevator to the 5th floor and the room is right there)

This will an "informational" hearing, since the chair of the Civil Justice Committee, Rep. Mullery, didn't release the bill - we will address him later. Anyhow, it's still good to get a hearing in Clark's committee because, come special session, this will give us a leg up to try again (after we expose some of the committee chairs who are squashing the bill).
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Here is a link to the text of the bill:
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H2233.0.html&session=ls86
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The People’s Bailout Act housing bill (HF-2233) calls for a 1 to 2 moratorium on foreclosures. It also calls for letting tenants keep their leases when their building is foreclosed upon. Here are just a few reasons why a moratorium is needed now:

Save Our Homes - We keep hearing about programs in the pipeline to help people, BUT they aren’t taking effect yet. We NEED a 1-year moratorium so people and banks have time to get together to work out a deal.

Protect Innocent Renters - Renters need the option of keeping their existing leases. Many renters don’t even know their landlords are getting foreclosed on; they have been paying rent, assuming it was going to the mortgage. There are also cases where “landlords” take the security deposit and disappear! Let renters keep the leases.

Save Neighborhoods, the Tax Base, Housing Stock & Investments - When houses (or apartments) go empty, everyone suffers. Housing values go down and there are health and safety issues. Empty houses turn into trashed houses. Lower property values mean less $ for local governments. Trashed houses mean less money when the banks try to re-sell the house. Keep people housed, keep properties maintained, and even keep some money going to the lender.

At the capitol, powerful Democrats, like the banker and realtor Sen. James Metzen, have so far stopped the legislative progress of the bill. But the MN Coalition for a Peoples Bailout will use every means necessary to get it passed this year.

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(how come there are so many Republicans/semi-Neo-Cons in the DFL party ? )

Sen Metzen doesn't seem to work for the "People" more for the "Corporations".. guess we know who is supporting his campaigns.

Wow, now that is the question isn't it. When I moved from Frogtown to Hamline-Midway in 1990 and I attended my first Coalition meeting I discovered that these "open" meetings were anything but open. Our appointed small group moderator told me he thought I ought to "go back where I came from" with my attitude when I objected to the format. The local monthly newsletter always had editorials about keeping "those" people (code for minorities) out of the area and "those other people" (code for progressive liberals) from Hamline U (students and some facility from taking over any discussion. Hamline Administration was always conservative.

The DFL could have gotten some traction on voting machine chicanery when Benanav was running for mayor and his DINO rival and ultimate winner got more votes in his district than there were voters. The election was extremely close. Benanav responded by moving right.

Benanav, who I voted for, then led the fight to get rid of "those people" (neighborhood hot rod enthusiasts) who had kept the nighttime businesses on University Ave going for decades, crime down because they often had kids with them, so they could redevelop the area and turn it into a no man's land at night.