Urgent Action Needed: Let's Push And Win On SB 628 and SB 328!
Most of us would not have predicted that so many people would be forced out of their homes and that so many of us know people facing homelessness after years of playing by the rules. This new homelessness has hit so hard and so quickly and has done so much damage to people who have no experience with political struggle and mobilizing that we are not yet seeing the kind of militant response to foreclosures that is needed. And many of us are hoping that the new administration will bail us out.
Oregon legislators are considering two bills dealing with the foreclosure crisis. Our Oregon says that 20,100 new foreclosures are expected in 2009 and that these foreclosures will bring with them neighboring property devaluations averaging $5459. You may be lucky enough to keep your place, but it could end up costing you more and being worth less because your neighbor was not so lucky.
SB 628 begins to address these problems by simply requiring the lenders to meet with borrowers before foreclosing on their homes. It creates a mediation process that will allow a neutral third party to look into each situation and propose modified agreements for both sides if the bill passes. It isn't no-foreclosures-no-way-and-while-you're-at-it-forgive-all-debt solution we most need, but it will keep some people in their homes, test the waters for more radical solutions, scare part of the financial services industry into cooperating and give some of the people facing home foreclosures some courage and the space needed for organizing. We have said on this blog before that someone needs to light the match--that is, do neighborhood organizing against foreclosures--and the concept of fighting back will catch on.
Oregon's Senators need to hear from us. Call 503-986-1000 during business hours and an operator will connect you with your senator.
Last week the Oregon Senate voted to pass Senate Bill 328. This gives Oregon's Department of Justice the authority to enforce laws against abusive debt collectors. John Kroger ran for Attorney General and won with this as one of his main planks. A win on this issue helps us hold him accountable for reaching and enforcing his most progressive goals.
Debt collectors get around the law in Oregon. They call you at work, show up at your door at the least convenient of times, lie to you and subtly threaten you--and they get away with it. SB328 makes it more difficult for them to get around the law. This doesn't relieve or cancel debt, which is what we really need, but it puts some justice into the process and attacks a predatory industry growing at our expense.
The bill is moving to the Oregon House of Representatives for approval. The debt collection industry--yes, it has become an industry under current crisis conditions--is mobilizing to stop it. Expect the sort of hardball and cynical kind of push the payday loan companies used a few years ago when their interests were threatened. People power needs to be harnessed for a push back.
It's the same drill--call 503-986-1000 during business hours to find your Representative and tell them to vote yes on SB 328.
Our Oregon is doing great work on these bills. Help them out! I cribbed their press release for this posting.
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2 comments:
It's a sad statement of reality that banks prefer profit over people. I know two working families in the Salem area that lost their homes. Both drive used cars, and don't have credit card lifestyles. In both cases all it take was one financial event that put them over the edge; one was a death in the family, the other were attorney fees. Banks get the bailout, collection companies get the commission.
It really doesn't take much to put the average person in this circumstance. More often than not it is medical circumstances, combined with a job loss that can generate this circumstance to any middle class person in the Willamette Valley.
We have been hitting this pretty hard lately on this blog--see the posting before this and the ones above--because everything Casey says above is true. It's also true nationally: health emergencies are the leading cause of home foreclosures. Look around Salem and you see it.
Today I'm working over in Lincoln County and I'm running into people everywhere here who are losing homes. One woman got fired, doesn't have a drivers license, can't afford a car, lives in a rural area and so can't get work. Her husband is supporting her and their three kids without insurance and they're living in a beat up trailer. I met an elderly couple living in an RV in a park permanently with no place to go: it's a sophisticated Hooverville. And I also met a woman whose husband went into the hospital here for a blood test and contracted a dreaded disease from the test and is now at OHSU and may have an amputation or wose coming. They're going to ship him to a nursing home for 45 days and then she gets him back--no income and she can't be his caregiver and so they lose their American Dream home. Last one: I met a woman who tripped in her home and now has no feeling below her waist and is losing her ability to write and so can't file for SSI disability benefits quickly enough to get even that little help. She and her disabled husband are about to be homeless.
You can argue that getting fired, not having enough insurance or not being prepared for the worst is someone's fault. And you can argue that a certain per centage of people on earth will experience disasters and bad luck.
But you can also argue, more convincingly, that if all of that is true than the banks ought to understand the human condition, prepare for disasters and be understanding when they occur.
Casey's implied point is also true: any solution has to be holistic and deal with every aspect of the crisis we're in.
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