English for Congress Position Paper (January 2012)
Foreclosures, Evictions, and Homelessness
Various
estimates of the number of homes that have been foreclosed, are
currently in foreclosure, or remain at risk of foreclosure range
from four to ten million, with two million expected during 2012. Many of these
foreclosures were the result of fraudulent mortgage processing
and lending disclosure practices by predatory institutions that
violated all norms of ethical behavior and responsible business
practices. Other
foreclosures were the result of deliberate lending to
unqualified buyers with the full knowledge that the buyers would
unable to repay the loans and related costs of home ownership.
Other foreclosures resulted from the economic catastrophe
following the 2008 financial meltdown that destroyed about eight
million jobs. Decent
hardworking persons were unable to continue making their loan
payments and were evicted or are currently facing eviction. Some
of these unfortunates became homeless when they had no other
housing alternatives after their evictions and began to
congregate in makeshift camps in cities and their nearby
vicinities. With no
end to their continuing occupation of city lands, city councils
are now enacting ordinances forbidding camping anywhere within
city limits, not just their business or commercial districts.
The homeless are fined, given bus tickets out of town, or
merely driven out of town.
Mesquite, Nevada, drove their homeless residents out of
town after bulldozing their encampment along the Virgin River at
the edge of town.
In
one respect, the city ordinances that forbade camping by the
homeless are very understandable despite being extremely odious. Any city or state that
welcomes the homeless would be overwhelmed by homeless migrants
from other areas not so compassionate. Federal care of the
estimated 650,000 to 3.5 million homeless persons is absolutely
essential because no one city or state can cope with the
magnitude of the problem, which is directly the consequence of
irresponsible and criminal behavior by major financial
institutions and the incompetence of their Federal government
overseers.
All
attempts should be made to keep families at risk of eviction in
their homes if they are the victims of fraud or the economic
catastrophe. For
repossessed homes held by the VA or FHA, the Federal government
must allow their occupants to remain indefinitely in their homes
and make payments based upon 30% of their reduced incomes with a
lien against the proceeds of the future sale of their home. In the meantime,
interest at the current cost of Federal borrowing, property
taxes, and insurance would be added to the unpaid balance of the
principal owed at the time of default. In the event that the
borrower is unable to repay or qualify for refinancing the
balance due when the house is voluntarily vacated, the
foreclosure process will proceed for its orderly disposition at
that time.
Finally,
for those persons without homes or any place to go for shelter,
military bases and reservations should be opened for them to
occupy any vacant buildings or camp in recreational or other
areas with sanitary facilities if no buildings are available.
Sanitary facilities such as portable toilets and water should be
provided in the event none are available in camping areas
allocated to the homeless.
Local charitable organizations should be invited to
assist the homeless and the base should provide food and medical
services that are otherwise not available from local support
groups. Unused or
closed military bases should be reopened wherever there is a
need for shelter, food, and medical services that are not
available or being provided to the homeless. FEMA trailers
should be placed on these active and unused reservations and
bases and connected to the bases’ utility systems for
semi-permanent housing for the homeless until decent and
suitable long term provision for their survival needs could be
arranged at other locations.
The Army was capable of providing fully functioning work
camps for the 250,000 young men entering the CCC programs during
the three months after President Franklin Roosevelt was
inaugurated for his first term on March 20, 1933. If the
military can be used to provide emergency aid to other nations
after catastrophes such as the recent Haitian earthquake, it
certainly must be used now to assist our citizens in distress. There is no excuse for
not doing so. Even our imprisoned criminals are treated much
better than the innocent homeless who have done no wrong!
A
proposed settlement of $25 Billion has been negotiated by New
York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and California Attorney
General Kamala Harris for robosigning claims against the banks,
but criminal and tax liability and other issues such as civil
rights and SEC claims have not been included. According to Matt
Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine, "Robosigning is a mass-perjury
issue, a tax evasion issue, a contractual fraud issue, and a
criminal conspiracy issue (the banks' highest executives were
engaged in planning it) and it resulted in millions of errors
that resulted in untold numbers of premature foreclosures". Only
the future will reveal whether justice for the millions of
victims of mortgage fraud will ever be attained.
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Designed by Imad-ad-Dean,
Inc.