YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE

THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS LANDSCAPE

Bishop Watkins in Oakland Calls for Help with Foreclosure.

Bishop J. E. Watkins youth media program featured on CBS 5 Jefferson's Award threatened by foreclosure. "Overcomers With Hope" asked to move out  Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall  by 2/2/13.  Program is in 4th year of a 10 year lease.

Correspondence received from Bishop J.E. Watkins today, 1/18/2013 demonstrates that not only homeowners and renters in homes are affected by the foreclosure crisis.  Ministries are being affected as well and other businesses. 

This foreclosure crisis is negatively changing the fabric of our society in ways we have yet to determine.  Little is being said about the physical and emotional toll, the broken marriages and displaced children and elders.  The focus is usually the numbers-what is owed the banks, the number of homes in foreclosures, but the life-altering impact is not being discussed to the degree it should. 

The Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall Building in Oakland, where Bishop Watkins leases, has been foreclosed on and are being required to move by February 2, 2013.
  Please read the letter asking for your support.

Here's a link to petition you can sign.
Please reach out to Bishop Watkins, if you can help.  His correspondence coming a day after the letter penned yesterday, adds to the urgency for people of faith to stand together and take action.

Sincerely,

Jackie Wright

December story in SF Bayview Newspaper

HBUC- (Historically Black Colleges) Post


OPEN LETTER TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS

I am writing you to ask your congregation and any religious body you are associated with to consider the current financial crisis as an opportunity for the religious community to step up and make a dramatic difference in the saving of homes and families.

Why not join the forces of your members, your congregation and your governing body to save homes. Begin with your membership.

Collect special offerings to raise funds to help people going through foreclosures. Add to those funds by outreaching to businesses, corporations and individuals outside of your congregations. Follow up with foundations to assistance. Once you have a pool of money help the people you can within your group.  As you get stronger, you can reach out others. 

Additionally, congregations within a particular zip code or neighborhood can work together to save homes in within their zone, block by block.

As you are fundraising to get money to help your congregation, and your neighborhood, intervene with the banks and financial serving companies on behalf of the homeowners to let the financial institutions know you have plans to assist your people and ask that they delay evicting your people from their homes.  A moratorium can make all the difference in the world.  By giving people time, they can oftentimes work out their own solutions. 

Banks have the power to  reduce principals and rework loans. Ask that they do so as you are working with your people to make payment.

I humbly submit an idea that can add to your efforts called "Kinsman Redeemer," for those parishioners/members that are having problems with cash flow, maybe they can yield a room or two for social services to generate money to pay the banks. Maybe they can rent out their house for a while and live in an affordable rental (if one can be found.  In San Francisco the waiting lists are closed and it can take years to even apply).  

The idea that came about with my sister, Phyllis Cameron, who works in real estate and insurance, is one that I spoke about in 2004 with now late journalist Chauncey Bailey when he interviewed me as the new public affairs manager at CBS5/CW Bay Area.

The religious community is equipped to pull together resources from government and private companies and individuals to forge a model or models to give relief to Americans. It may call for working outside of denominations and comfort zones.

There's much to say, but I do not want this to be too lengthy of a  correspondence. Check out Greenlining Institute's report on Foundation giving to minority lead nonprofits.

Did you see the report by ABC 7's Michael Finney "7 on Your Side" 6:00 p.m. news yesterday about Wells Fargo's equivalent of a "pay day loan," that kept a woman on a fixed Social Security income in financial bondage for 5 years.  

When media organizations report the truth there can be consequences.  

Please take a moment to write and congratulate ABC 7 for courage to report that story (7oys@kgo-tv.com or write comment in general webpage box.   Media are oftentimes dealing with the threat of not getting advertising from companies they report the the unfavorable truth about.  Someone must watch the watchdog of government and report when the get it wrong and affirm them when they get it right.  The impact of TV News is serious according to UCLA Law Professor Dr. Jerry Kang in "Trojan Horses of Race." 

Here are some links to consider as time allows. There are many others that show the state of this country's financial crisis quagmire.

Bank Deal Ends Flawed Reviews of Foreclosures-January 10, 13-New York Times

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/business/bank-deal-ends-flawed-reviews-of-foreclosures.html 

More Questions About Mortgage Relief

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/opinion/more-questions-on-mortgage-relief.html  

9 ways feds bungled foreclosure crisis

http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=1c2eec00-60af-4ec1-81c2-33777f65ef7a 

Immigrants To Wells Fargo: Stop Investing In For-Profit Detention

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/immigrants-wells-fargo_n_1016339.html  

Wachovia Admits Profits from Slavery

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/news/fortune500/wachovia_slavery/ 

http://www.fbi.gov/charlotte/press-releases/2012/former-wells-fargo-investment-banker-and-co-conspirators-charged-with-11-million-insider-trading-conspiracy  

U.S. Bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs  

Morally, the call for help is clear. Evil corruption has crept into our banking and financial systems. "Greed, for the lack of a better word is Good,"-"Wall Street," the movie called the times we live in.

Gordon Gekko -Greed is Good-"Wall Street"(:45 Seconds)

Did you see the report by CBS on January 10, 2010-reporting on the new mortgage laws?  CBS weaved in the old lie that the mortgage holders who could not repay their loans are responsible for the financial crisis.

Judeo-Christian principles that are the basis for the U.S. legal system are clear. People should not be put in a state of bondage. That's why there are laws about usury in the scriptures and the concept of Jubilee-property returning back to families every 50 years.... So the same people will not remain poor for generations.

For Christians, there is a clarion call from James and Revelation that indicates we should be warning the bankers that they will reap what they sow. And as they will reap, it's important that we shield the people that they took advantage of and/or misled.

James 5:1-6

Revelation 18:9-12

 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2018:9-12&version=KJV 

I write to you as a concerned citizen, community leader, foreclosure fighter and media activist.

My ideas are not the end all be all. You may have far more advanced plans at work (please share what you are doing by sending your foreclosure related programs to my personal account: 1jackiewright@gmail.com)  

I put my ideas on the table to share and stimulate more action. 

Sincerely,

Part VII of Occupy Bernal Forum on Fight for Affordable Housing on November 29, 2012, San Francisco. Jackie Wright presented "Kinsman Redeemer" idea to State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (caution Ammiano's response includes an expletive that's not deleted.)