New America Media - Foreclosures

Deadline Approaches for Homeowners Seeking Foreclosure Reviews

2012-11-29T19:58:34Z

Well over 4 million homeowners affected by the foreclosure crisis are eligible for an independent review of their cases – but only a small percentage of them have requested one through a recently available federal program, and the deadline to do so is looming.

The Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) allows eligible current and former homeowners to have their foreclosure files reviewed by independent consultants. Homeowners who were financially harmed by abuses or errors of their mortgage servicers will be eligible for compensation.

As of September 2012, 18 percent of eligible homeowners in California had responded to the mailing about the IFR, which is run by the Federal Reserve Bank and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Nationally, the response rate is only 7 percent. The deadline to request a review is December 31.

“The response rate has been incredibly low compared to the number of homeowners who may have been affected,” says Maeve Elise Brown, Executive Director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates. She spoke at a briefing for ethnic media on Wednesday hosted by New America Media with support from the San Francisco Foundation, intended to raise awareness about the IFR Program.

“There was almost no outreach to people of color or immigrants,” says Brown.

Lena Robinson, a regional manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, says that the IFR is particularly focused on increasing the number of African American and Asian American responders.

Mailings about the program were sent out in November 2011. Many homeowners were suspicious of the mailing and dismissed it as a mortgage scam.

Additionally, despite the Federal Reserve Bank’s intention to reach out to Asian American homeowners, the mailings were only sent in English and Spanish (with a note about where to find other translations).

“Unfortunately, a lot of the information that’s out there is not in Chinese [and other Asian languages],” says Allen Zhao, the Housing Coordinator at ASIAN, Inc.

Cheyenne Martinez-Boyette of the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) adds that the foreclosure crisis “has impacted the Latino community disproportionately,” which he says represents almost 48 percent of all foreclosures.

Etelvina Reyes, a San Francisco Bay Area homeowner, had lost her job and was going through a divorce when she got behind on her mortgage payments. She first approached a third party that promised to help her modify her home loan with her bank. The effort ultimately failed, though she was still charged a fee. She then tried to get a loan modification directly through her lender, Citibank, which granted her a trial modification.

One day she went to the bank to make a mortgage payment. “They said, ‘Why are you paying the mortgage? You are no longer the owner.’ The bank was now the owner,” says Reyes. “That was the worst day of my life.”

Reyes was likely a victim of “dual-tracking” – a practice in which banks try to foreclose on homeowners before giving a decision on a loan modification. The practice is set to be outlawed in California next year. She went to MEDA for help, and the organization was able to assist her in rescinding the foreclosure.

Reyes recently requested a review through the IFR, and could be eligible for compensation if it’s found that she was wrongfully foreclosed upon.

Any homeowner whose primary residence was at some stage of foreclosure any time in 2009 or 2010, and who used a mortgage servicer on the IFR’s list of servicers and affiliates, is eligible for a review. Homeowners who did not actually lose their homes to foreclosure are still eligible to apply. Compensation ranging from $500 to $125,000 plus equity will be determined by how much the homeowner was financially harmed during the foreclosure process. In the most severe cases, says Robinson, the foreclosure can be rescinded.

Despite the fact that the IFR began accepting requests for review in November 2011, and 234,000 homeowners have already requested one, no decisions have been made and no compensation has been paid out. Robinson says that at this point, the program’s main priority is to “get a sense of the range of issues that homeowners may have faced.”

No money will be released until the application process is closed, and regulators won’t give a time frame. Maeve Elise Brown says that it’s not clear how obvious the financial harm will have to be in order for a homeowner to be compensated.

Brown says that there have also been significant problems with the process in terms of who was hired to review the files. An investigation has revealed ties between the banks and the independent consultants they have hired to review the foreclosure files. The process will “require ongoing oversight by the public,” according to Brown.

Robinson of the Federal Reserve Bank maintains, though, that this is homeowners’ opportunity to “close the chapter on that part of their lives.”

On December 10, the Mission Economic Development Agency will hold a workshop to help eligible homeowners submit a request to the IFR online. Spanish language translators will be available. Applicants should have their loan number, the last four digits of their Social Security number, and any documentation that would substantiate financial harm during the foreclosure process. 2301 Mission Street, Suite 301, San Francisco. 6-8 PM.

Homeowners who did not receive the IRF form can call 1-888-952-9105 or apply online: www.independentforeclosurereview.com

Homeowners can visit hud.gov for a list of housing counseling agencies that are approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Homeowner Wins Twice Against Freddie Mac

2012-11-25T09:00:00Z

The nation’s largest mortgage company may finally be bending to public pressure. A St. Paul homeowner has scored a pair of victories against Freddie Mac that have allowed her to stay in her foreclosed home, but only after being misled in a move that’s called “dual tracking.”

Caylin Crawford’s problems began when she had a snowboarding accident and wasn’t able to work for a few months. Without the income, she realized she would have trouble making her monthly mortgage payments. U.S. Bank was the originator of her mortgage and Freddie Mac had purchased it on the secondary market. She called U.S. Bank and explained her situation. A U.S. Bank representative told her she could probably qualify for a HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) loan but she had to stop making payments, which she did.

While negotiations were in progress, U.S. Bank sent a letter on Oct 11, 2011 stating they would not proceed with foreclosure. But eight days later she got a notice saying her home would be sold at a sheriff’s auction.

The practice is called “dual tracking” and has been used against other Twin Cites homeowners by other lenders such as Citibank.

Crawford then began a frustrating process of trying to negotiate with U.S. Bank, where she found the company apparently did not want the negotiation to be on the record. She said the bank refused to reply to her email even though it had done so in the past. When she called U.S. Bank, representatives would ask if the call was being recorded. Crawford says if she would say yes, the bank representative would insist that the recorder be turned off or they would hang up. Crawford said other foreclosed homeowners she has talked to have run into the same problem with U.S. Bank.

U.S. Bank’s Vice President of Media Relations Nicole Garrison-Sprenger says, “both of those practices are not policies of U.S. Bank. To say so would be false.”

After about 10 months of negotiations, Crawford filed a wrongful foreclosure suit against U.S. Bank and Freddie Mac on August 2, 2012 — the day before her eviction hearing. She waited until the last minute in hopes that the bank or Freddie Mac would move.

Crawford said Freddie Mac turned the case over to a legal firm that charges $560 an hour and specializes in fighting these types of cases.

All this over a $40,000 mortgage of which Crawford had already paid off $12,000 in principal, in just four years.

U.S. Bank bought the home from itself at the foreclosure auction for the full $40,000. “They made quite a bit of money” from the sale said Crawford. Even though the home was sold, she was allowed to stay in it.

OccupyHomes MN Helps Out

After her home had been sold out from under her, Crawford contacted OccupyHomesMN in September 2012 with the objective of helping others avoid her situation. She was told that they needed to solve her problem first. At her first OccupyHomesMN meeting she started to tell her story when her mother jumped in and recounted the entire tale.

Crawford had an OccupyHomesMN barbeque in her back yard in September 2012 with about 50 people joining her. The all got out their cell phones and left a recorded message for John Lucas, Jr., Freddie Mac regional director in Chicago. Four days later she got a settlement offer. As part of the settlement, Freddie Mac would allow Crawford’s mother to buy the home and let Crawford stay there.

The settlement was a surprise for several reasons. Freddie Mac usually refuses to deal directly with homeowners, and it prohibits the sale of foreclosed homes to the owner or anyone related or otherwise that might allow the owner to live in the property. Freddie Mac representative Brad German confirmed that was the policy when he was contacted in September.

Pattern of problems

Freddie Mac and its sister agency Fannie Mae have come under increasing attack by those involved with mortgage or foreclosure problems. The UpTake has been following the Cruz Family of Minneapolis' battle with Freddie Mac for months. Freddie Mac is now selling the Cruz house even though the issuing bank wants to rewrite the mortgage.

There are several common complaints about Freddie Mac we’ve seen from the many foreclosure cases The UpTake has covered this year. Those complaints include:

1. Refusal to lower principal of the loan even if the bank involved want to do so. Anthony Newby of Occupy Homes MN stated, “Under the helm of Edward DeMarco they have denied principal reduction to over 15 million homeowners and refused to work with those in foreclosure, all while using public money to carry out costly evictions.

2. Refusing to allow foreclosed home owner under any circumstance to return to their home. Crawford’s case is a notable exception.

3. General recalcitrance in dealing with home owners on any issue.

4. Excessive expenditure of public funds to carry out evictions. Minneapolis has spent hundreds of thousand dollars in police actions on one home (the Cruz Family) at the request of Freddie Mac and dozens of non-violent protestors have been charged with a range of crimes, incurring more city costs and legal costs to protestors.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were created by the U.S. government to help and assist homeowners in securing loans. Freddie Mac’s web page page says it’s mission is “to stabilize the nation’s residential mortgage markets and expand opportunities for homeownership and affordable rental housing. Our statutory mission is to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S. housing market.” The site also says “We are focused on meeting the urgent liquidity needs of the U.S. residential mortgage market, lowering costs for borrowers and supporting the recovery of the housing market and U.S. economy.”

Crawford doesn’t think Freddie Mac is living up to its mission. It’s “clearly not acting in the best interest of our homeowners,” Crawford said, sitting outside her reclaimed home.

Freddie Mac’s initial indifference and misleading “dual tracking” approach caused Crawford to invest a lot of time and energy protecting her home. The good news is, it appears she is making real progress in keeping it.

Homeowners Still Waiting on Billions in Foreclosure Relief

2012-11-21T09:30:00Z

photo caption: Fontana, Calif. resident Pretti Hilton's home is set to be auctioned.

Thanks to a federal program, homeowner Pretti Hilton could be getting just what she needs to resolve her longstanding foreclosure case: a referee.

Under the Independent Foreclosure Review program, eligible homeowners can request a review of their foreclosure file by a third-party consultant. If the independent auditor finds that the bank made errors in processing their foreclosure, the homeowner can recoup money – from $500 to as much as $125,000.

For Hilton, who has been fighting foreclosure of her home for nearly four years, the program offers a ray of hope.

So far, her attempts to work with her lender, Bank of America, on modifying her home loan to produce a lower monthly mortgage payment, have failed. In fact, the bank tried to auction off her property several times. If she were to lose her two-bedroom home in Moreno Valley, California, says Hilton, she and her two sons -- a 15-year-old and a disabled 27-year-old – would be on the street.

“The stress is astronomical,” she says, adding that she is taking medication for hypertension, something she’d never done before. “I don’t believe I was blessed with a house in order to lose it…. I will not go down without a fight.”

A home health worker, Hilton says her income took a hit with state budget cuts to programs that subsidize in-home care. When she got back on her feet, she resumed making mortgage payments, which by then included late fees. But even after paying off the late charges, she says, her bank did not lower the monthly payment back to the original amount. Because of that discrepancy and others, Hilton says she hasn’t paid her mortgage for three years, and her case is still in limbo.

Then Hilton received a letter in the mail about the Independent Foreclosure Review program run by the Federal Reserve Bank and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Hilton applied for the program two months ago, and says she’s “expecting to hear something soon.”

But the wait could be longer than Hilton originally expected.

More than a year after its launch, the program has yet to pay out any compensation, and just a fraction of the requested reviews have been completed.

Last April, federal regulators ordered the nation’s biggest banks to overhaul their foreclosure procedures in the wake of the “robo-signing” scandal – when it came to light that banks were approving foreclosures without verifying the underlying documents. As a result, the banks were required by the government to offer third-party reviews of foreclosure cases to their customers who request it, and hire independent consultants to do the work.

Of the more than 4.4 million homeowners who were potentially eligible for the program who were sent letters, about 250,000 requested a review. Banks were also ordered to “look back” at a representative sample of cases, accounting for another 159,000 homeowners, bringing the total number of reviews to more than 400,000.

Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the OCC, says about 260,000 reviews are underway. According to an interim report released in June, consultants had completed just 11,000 reviews.

“No compensation has been approved yet because we have not reached that point in the review process,” Hubbard says.

In June, regulators came up with a compensation pay scale, attaching dollar amounts or other remedies to a list of about a dozen possible errors made by the banks. If consultants determine that a homeowner suffered financial harm, they will recommend what type and amount of relief should go to the borrower. The banks then need to submit a “remediation plan” to regulators, and then the checks can go out, Hubbard says.

“We hope that remediation will begin in the fourth quarter of this year, but continue through 2013,” he says. As of yet, the banks have not submitted those plans to regulators.

The most common complaints prompting a request for review, Hubbard says, involve denials of loan modifications, improper and incorrect fees, timeliness of payments and disputes in amounts owed.

In Hilton’s case, if a review of her file found she was wrongfully denied a loan modification, the foreclosure would be halted and the bank would have to grant or deny her application, and compensate her either $2,500 or $10,000.

Compensation to individual homeowners is capped at $125,000, but the total amount the banks would have to pay out to all homeowners is “unlimited,” Hubbard says.

The independent review program contrasts with a parallel but separate restitution program instituted earlier this year as a result a multi-state lawsuit. The National Mortgage Settlement promised homeowners who were financially harmed by bank errors a “one-size-fits-all” check of about $2000. It set a “low bar to get some benefit,” according to Paul Leonard, director of the Center for Responsible Lending’s California office. The compensation would shrink as more homeowners tap the fund.

In contrast, the federal program, says Leonard, is a complement to that.

“[It] takes a fine-tooth-comb approach to really identity specific borrowers harmed and how much harm they actually suffered,” Leonard says.

Although it doles out stiffer penalties for errors, and mandates that those deficiencies in each bank’s foreclosure process be fixed, recent revelations have come to light that the independent reviews may be flawed. ProPublica revealed cozy ties between the banks and the third-party consultants that were hired to conduct the reviews, resulting in bank employees trying to influence the outcome of reviews.

News reports also revealed that the third-party consultants are reaping record profits through their contracts with the banks.

“The purpose of this [independent review process] was to remedy financial harm to borrowers; it wasn’t meant to be ‘The Consultants Full-Employment Act,’” Leonard says. “The irony is, it appears that they [the banks] are going to spend a lot more money [on] paying for the consultants…[than] providing remedies to borrowers.”

He adds, “Nobody knows for sure [how much money will be paid to homeowners]. No money has been put into the pocket of borrowers yet.”

With the deadline to file a request for review under the federal program looming (Dec. 31), housing counselors say more effort is needed to publicize the program to eligible homeowners. Any homeowner whose primary residence was in any stage of foreclosure in 2009 or 2010, and whose mortgage was serviced by participating loan servicers, is eligible to request a review.

Maria Cabildo, president of East LA Community Corporation, says her organization has helped just a handful of people apply for the program. Unfortunately, she adds, many homeowners may have simply tossed the letter from federal regulators informing them of the program, thinking it was a scam. She says many of her clients have been inundated by mailings from mortgage scammers.

Hubbard, the OCC spokesman, says mailings about the program were sent out in English and Spanish, with a note about translation services in other languages.

Cabildo says homeowners have been hearing about numerous programs meant to provide different forms of relief to homeowners, but those remedies have been slow to materialize.

“It’s been disappointing. I feel that there have been tools that were created that should have worked really well,” she says, referring to HAMP (the loan modification program that formed the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s efforts to stem the foreclosure crisis).

HAMP didn’t live up to its billing, says Cabildo, partly due to banking practices such as “dual-track,” which is when banks carry out foreclosure proceedings before a decision is given on a loan modification application.

In the meantime, some banks have started to offer relief to homeowners, but “not the forms of assistance most of us had in mind,” says Maeve Elise Brown, who directs Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA).

She says, so far, the majority of relief for homeowners under the settlement has come in the form of wiping out second mortgages (rather than offering loan modifications) that were uncollectible anyway – a move that provides little real relief to homeowners.

“When I look at the universe of opportunities for assistance available to [homeowners] now, the opportunities are still a little more limited than they need to be,” she says, adding that homeowners need to be pro-active about taking advantage of all available programs. “The Independent Foreclosure Review process is a little pinpoint of light, and it could be a year before people will see any money, but it would be good for them to eventually see it.”

Peggy Mears of Fontana, Calif., applied for the federal “independent review” program in April, and is still waiting to find out if she’ll receive any compensation.

“We were on a so-called trial modification, which is three months [long],” Mears says. “We paid for nine months and all of a sudden we were being foreclosed upon.”

Mears, who now advocates on behalf of homeowners as an organizer for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, says the bank should have stopped charging them after the third month and switched them from a trial to a permanent modification.

Mears eventually struck a deal with her lender OneWest Bank (formerly IndyMac Bank) to lower her monthly mortgage payment to a level, she says, that is only “slightly lower” than what she had been paying.

The long wait for resolution under the federal program is not daunting, Mears says, because after going through the lengthy and frustrating process to modify her home loan with her bank, she says “ nothing they do surprises me.”

Photo credit: Joseph Rodriguez

Blacks and Hispanics Lost $1 Trillion in Home Equity

2012-11-13T09:20:00Z

Among the 10.9 million homes that went into foreclosure between 2007 and 2011, more than half of the “spillover” cost to nearby homes have led to a $1 trillion loss in home equity for African-American and Latino families., according to a new report by the Center for Responsible Lending titled, “Collateral Damage: The Spillover Costs of Foreclosures.”

The report said, “Families impacted in minority neighborhoods have lost or will lose on average, $37,084 or 13 percent of their home value.” By comparison, the overall average American homeowner affected by nearby foreclosures will lose only seven percent of their home value, or $21,077.

The most recently-available census data shows that African Americans and Latinos comprise less than 30 percent of the nation’s population. Yet together, neighborhoods of color shoulder more than half of the $1.95 trillion in the drain on neighboring property values as a result of foreclosures.

“CRL’s report is troubling evidence of how much the economic cost of foreclosures are spilling over into communities all over America,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Communities of color—which have been targeted for years by predatory lenders, and abused for years by mortgage servicers—have been practically drowning. Until policymakers get serious about reducing foreclosures and restoring meaningful home ownership in all communities, a full economic recovery will likely remain out of reach.”

Compounding the problem, communities of color still suffer from stark wealth gaps when compared to whites. Earlier this year, the U.S. Census Bureau found that African Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans together lost nearly 60 percent of median household net worth from 2005-2010. Over that same period, median net worth for white families dropped by 23 percent, about a third of the loss rate for people of color. With fewer investment portfolios and lower earnings, the hope to build wealth for communities of color often rests with the value of their home investment.

Read more here.

Elderly Baltimore Woman Battles to Keep Her Home

2012-09-27T07:05:00Z

BALTIMORE, Md.--Any day now a Fanny Mae representative could padlock Sharon Marie Smith out of the house she’s called home for 37 years.

Smith, 67, has become frazzled at the thought of having to move off the property on Winston Avenue in Baltimore, which also happens to be the last place she shared with her late husband, Charles James Smith.

The 80-year-old died on Feb. 17, 2011, leaving behind his wife, two children from a previous relationship. And he took with him the deed to the house Smith said she alone paid “cash money” for almost four decades ago.

Risks of Reverse Mortgages

This is one reality of using a reverse mortgage, or a loan agreement where a borrower receives money from a mortgage company instead of doling out cash in a traditional forward mortgage.

Like other non-borrowing spouses around the country, Smith is facing eviction from her property because she is not listed on any of the mortgage paperwork with the loan-holding company.

“I'm losing weight and I can't hardly think,” Smith said. “I'm stressed out because I don't know when they might come and tell me I have to go.”

Back in 1975, Smith lived in another property that was bought by the City of Baltimore. She said she used the money paid to her, $21,000, to relocate to her current residence, a three-bedroom house with a front and back yard.

Smith later married, and the couple lived on the property together. In 2008 the two decided to look at using a reverse mortgage to help get rid of debt. A reverse mortgage allows borrowers to pull funds from the equity of a house, or the amount of money left over after subtracting the amount owed on a home from the market value.

“You convert the equity that you've built in your home over the course of many years,” said Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). “You don't make a payment every month, the bank essentially pays you, and you draw on that equity to stay in your house."

Borrowers can receive their money all at once or in monthly increments until they can no longer live in the home or they die. At that time, the house is sold and all monies advanced on the equity are paid back to the mortgage company.

Smith said she was on the deed before the loan was made and met the minimum age requirement of 62 at the time, but was told in counseling that the loan could be secured much faster if her husband were to do the paperwork in his name.

One week later the couple received $7,000 in a lump sum, and according to Smith, Fannie Mae is also claiming to have paid off upwards of $100,000 in bills, an amount she disputes.

Helps Seniors—But at a Cost

“Reverse mortgages can enable some people to stay in their homes and age in place, but it’s an expensive way to borrow money,” said Lori Trawinski, a senior strategic policy advisor at AARP’s Public Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

There are no regulations on how a borrower uses the money, but Trawinski said most seniors use their funds to “supplement monthly income, complete home repairs or modifications, such as adding a handicap ramp or bathroom.”

Seeking to give non-borrowing spouses more protection, AARP took their fight up with HUD in court a year and a half ago on behalf of one non-borrowing spouse in Maryland, and two from Indiana and New York.

The case challenges a 2008 change in HUD policy that now excludes spouses in the term “homeowner” for reverse mortgages. This is a direct contradiction with the definition stated in the regulations that established the reverse mortgage program in 1989, according to Jean Constantine-Davis, senior attorney with AARP Foundation Litigation (AFL), the organization’s legal advocacy arm.

“HUD adopted regulations that do not provide protections as required in the statute,” said Constantine-Davis. “It's become a big problem and if we're successful it will be quite significant.”

According to Davis, other issues with reverse mortgages include situations where a spouse is unprotected because they are not age 62 at the time of signing. Problems have also arisen in cases where spouses have been talked into coming off the property deed, or completely unaware they had been taken off by shady mortgage brokers looking to get the higher commission that comes with a loan in the name of an older borrower.

As with some private contracts and with all Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured loans, the Smiths underwent financial counseling before signing their paperwork. But the process was “very confusing” said Smith, who thought she was adding her husband’s name to the property deed--not taking her name off.

“We require housing counseling not only for the borrowing spouse, but for the non-borrowing spouse as well,” said Sullivan, speaking solely about loans backed by the FHA through the HUD home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) program. “We do this so that everybody clearly understands what happens when one spouse pre-deceases the other, and what that could mean to the other spouse’s ability to remain in the home.”

Trouble With Property Taxes

Sullivan further explained that aside from the borrowing spouse passing away before the non-borrower, families also run into trouble when it comes to property taxes and home insurance.

"Often times when you pay your mortgage every month, the bank will collect a little more money from you and put it in an escrow account to pay your taxes and your home owner insurance,” said Sullivan. He added that companies do this only to protect the house, which is their main interest. “In a reverse mortgage situation, the borrower has to make these payments because there is no mortgage.”

According to Trawinski, as of February 2012, “9.4 percent of all HECM loans are in technical default” as a direct result of not paying property taxes or securing home insurance.

Fannie Mae declined to make a general statement on the pros and cons of reverse mortgages due to the fact that they stopped taking on that type of loan in 2010, according to Andrew J. Wilson, director of External and Media Relations at Fannie Mae. They refused repeated requests for comment on the case of Sharon Smith.

“Everyone is upset about it, but we haven’t found anything that we can do about it,” said Jack Brown, Smith’s brother. “She’s not the only one, there are others going through the same thing.”
“I want people to see what this reverse mortgage thing is doing to a lot of older people. It’s causing them to lose their homes. It’s not the same as owing a mortgage and not paying, but it’s similar in that you lose your home,” said Brown.

AARP will appeal, in November, a previous decision that found their case had no standing before a federal district judge in the District if Columbia Circuit Court.

Banks Threaten Elderly Veterans With Foreclosure

2012-09-18T08:00:00Z

SAN FRANCISCO -- Robert Moses (pictured above) is 92, an African American and a World War II Navy veteran.

Don Baird is a couple of weeks shy of his 90th birthday, is scheduled for heart surgery next week, and is also a World War II veteran.

Aside from being former servicemen, both men also share one other thing: they are about to lose the homes they owned, each for more than four decades, to foreclosure.

“We were granted loans we should not have been given because we were not financially capable,” asserted Baird’s wife, Tina, 81, a former teacher.

Chase has set the foreclosure date on their ranch-style home in Redwood City, Calif., for September 24.

Homeward Residential, the current loan servicer for Deutsche Bank, has temporarily suspended the foreclosure on Moses’s two-story town house.

Neither institution returned calls seeking comment for this story.

Yesterday, Sept. 17, members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), activists from Occupy Noe and Occupy Bernal and about 40 other activists gathered outside the War Memorial Veterans Building to protest bank foreclosures on veterans and seniors.

“Seniors have been set upon by these banks in a very, very vicious manner,” asserted Archbishop Franzo King of the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, who said he was himself a senior and lost his home to foreclosure recently. “We have to shake off that cloak of shame and put on our war clothes and fight these gangsters.”

Redlined black and Hispanics

King pointed out that there was a time when banks “redlined” blacks and Hispanics and routinely rejected their loan applications. Then, during the housing boom of the mid-2000s, mortgage brokers steered minority borrowers into expensive sub-prime mortgages with financial institutions that often charged them higher fees and rates than their white counterparts who posed the same credit risk.

“These brokers are just like Satan,” King said.

According to a recent AARP study titled, “Nightmare on Main Street: Older Americans and the Mortgage Market Crisis,” while the mortgage crisis has hit every age group, Americans who are 75-plus have been disproportionately hurt, especially those in the African-American and Hispanic communities.

Moses said he refinanced his nearly paid-off loan with Deutsche in 2006 so he could bring his home up to city code. He had purchased the home in 1972 for $79,000. With the $520,000 new adjustable rate mortgage loan he took out, he was able to give the house a complete makeover, he said.

He said Deutsche set a 7.75 percent rate on the loan and remembers the bank telling him that the rate would adjust to less in a few years. At the time, Moses figured that he could comfortably make the $1,700 monthly payments with his monthly income of a little over $3,000, which includes his veteran’s pension of $1,300, his union pension of $450, and his Social Security of about $1,300.

Last December, he was shocked to see that his interest rate had gone up to 12.95 percent, which translated to payments of $3,400 a month.

“They lulled him into a false sense of security and then lowered the boom on him,” said his niece, Nealie Yarbrough who, along with her 13-year-old daughter, is living with Moses.

Moses let the loan provider know that he couldn’t afford the new rate and asked if he could modify the loan. (A loan modification is an adjustment to the terms of the existing loan, often for a short period of time to allow the borrower to get back on his financial feet.) In the meantime, to avoid being delinquent, Moses said he sent Homeward Residential a check for $2,300, saying that was all he could afford.

Moses said Homeward told him they couldn’t accept a “partial payment.”

“But they didn’t return the money I sent them,” Moses said, adding that since then, he has not paid his mortgage, while trying unsuccessfully to modify his loan “three or four times.”

Don't make enough for loan modification

The cost of applying for a loan modification is about $1,000 per application, pointed out Benjamin Reed Jr., who was speaking at yesterday’s protest on behalf of his father, a Tuskegee Air Force veteran, who retired from the military in the 1970s.

Reed said his parents, both in their 80s, have so far spent $3,000 on loan modification applications with Wells Fargo, but have not succeeded in their efforts. The Reeds have been living in their Twin Peaks home for 27 years. The home is currently facing foreclosure.

“This fight must have taken 10 years off their lives,” Reed said.

The Bairds are also weary of fighting to get their loan modified with Chase. They said that since 1989, they refinanced multiple times to pay off their medical bills and credit card bills, and the last time in 1999 to help their daughter and her family out.

The Bairds current combined income is around $3,550 a month. The amount they owe Chase is approximately $750,000, and at the current interest rate the bank is charging them, their monthly mortgage payment is about $2,500.

“Donald and Tina are beating themselves [up] about having taken out all those loans,” observed Grace Martinez, an organizer with ACCE.

Between 2008 and 2011, more than one million homes were lost to foreclosure, with an additional 700,000 currently in the foreclosure pipeline. Seven of the nation’s 10 hardest hit cities by foreclosure rate last year were in California. Martinez said that 84 percent of the foreclosures that happened in San Francisco between 2009 and 2011 were “illegal.”

Like the Bairds and Moses did, many older people, most of them on a fixed income, tapped their home equity before the recession struck for fixing their homes or paying their medical bills, the AARP study points out.

“The banks’ pitch line to seniors is: ‘You are sitting on a pile of equity; why can’t you take out money to clear your debts,’” noted Martinez.

This past July, California passed the Homeowners Bill of Rights to protect homeowners and borrowers during the mortgage and foreclosure process by prohibiting unfair bank practices. The bill goes into effect next January.

Over the last three years, the Bairds have tried unsuccessfully four times to get their loan modified, but Chase has told them each time it couldn’t because they make too little money.

Tina Baird asserted that as bad as the situation she and her husband are in, what Moses is facing is even worse.

“What the bank has done to him is outrageous,” she said, noting that perhaps their “white skin” has helped them in some way.

Moses is hoping that Homeward Residential will give him a break and let him pay the 7.75 percent he was originally charged, else his 82-year-old wife, Stella, who is currently in a rehab facility in the city recovering from leg surgery, won’t have a home to come back to when she is discharged.

“They keep telling me my income is too low to have my loan modified,” Moses said. “What do they want me to do – take up a part-time job?

AARP Study: Ethnic Elders Slammed Hardest by Foreclosures

2012-07-19T07:15:00Z

Photo: A recent rally for fair housing by the nonprofit Housing for All in Washington, D.C.

WASINGTON, D.C.—The mortgage crisis has slammed every age group—especially the oldest Americans 75-plus—and has hit Latino and African American seniors and their families the hardest, according to a study being released today by AARP.

About 1.5 million people ages 50 or older lost their homes to foreclosure from 2007 to 2011, and another 3.5 million aging boomers and seniors in the United States “are at risk of losing their homes,” says the report, “Nightmare on Main Street: Older Americans an the Mortgage Market Crisis.”

“Despite the perception that older Americans are more housing secure than younger people, millions of older Americans are carrying more mortgage debt than ever before,” the report says.

Trouble Rising Fastest for Seniors

For instance, during the five years covered by the study, seriously delinquent mortgage loans—those in the verge of foreclosure -- for people age 50 or older rose faster than delinquencies for people younger than 50. These loan payments, 90 days or more late, swelled for the 50-plus group by 456 percent from 2007-2011, compared with the also disturbing jump by 361 percent for those under 50.

AARP’s analysis included 17.4 million home loans tracked by CoreLogic, a leading data base on home equity. The report reveals that at the end of 2011, more than 600,000 home loans by people 50-plus were in foreclosure. Additionally, 625,000 older homeowners were 90 or more days delinquent—a least three mortgage payments behind, a common trigger for foreclosures.

Furthermore, the research found, by last December 3.5 million loans by older people were “underwater.” That is, they owed more than the value of their property.

The AARP analysis found that middle-income mortgage holders “have borne the brunt of the foreclosure crisis.” Although those with incomes at less than $50,000 held one-quarter of the home loans in the study — but accounted for one-third of the foreclosures.

Most Age 75-Plus Have No Savings Left

“The biggest problem we found is for the oldest of the old, those age 75 or more,” stated Debra Whitman, AARP executive vice president for policy, in a call-in press briefing on Wednesday.

She noted that two-thirds of those ages 75 or more “have no retirement savings left to make up these differences.” They can’t refinance or sell their homes, even to have enough to move into assisted living or a nursing home when they become frail.

“Older homeowners often rely on their home equity to finance their needs in retirement – things like health care, home maintenance and other unexpected needs. The fact that so many older Americans have no equity at all is troubling,” Whitman said.

Although four out of five Americans older Americans own their homes, many tapped their home equity before the recession struck for such customary needs as home repairs or rising health care costs. Once the housing bubble burst, millions of seniors depleted their retirement savings and other accounts hoping to save their home.

Even though retirement income is fixed or declining for many, says the study, their costs have escalated.

The report reveals that from 2007-2010 “average expenditures for mortgage interest and charges increased 16.3 percent; average property tax expenditures increased 4.9 percent; average expenditures for utilities increased 5.2 percent; and average health care expenditures increased 5.7 percent.”

Ironically, another factor for the added financial jeopardy confronting many seniors is longevity. “We’re seeing more and more people today over 100 and over 90,” Whitman observed. The combination of more people than ever living beyond age 75, and the dramatic economic downturn means fewer elders have even the modest resources they need to keep a roof over their heads.

Older people face more difficult challenges recovering from a foreclosure as a result of having fewer working years remaining to rebuild their financial security, Whitman said. In addition, seniors who have lost their jobs face longer periods of unemployment. When they do find a job, it is often at a lower pay level than their previous position, and offers little or no benefits.

Foreclosures Double for Older Blacks, Latinos

The report, conducted by Lori A. Trawinski of AARP’s Public Policy Institute, shows that Hispanic and black elders suffered “double the foreclosure rate” of older white borrowers. While Latinos and African Americans 50-plus with prime loans saw foreclosure rates of 3.9 percent and 3.5 percent, the level for whites was 1.9 percent in the five-year height of the crisis.

For the more troubling subprime loans, foreclosure levels were sharply higher for everyone 50-plus, the study shows, but particularly for ethnic elders. Overall, subprime mortgages accounted for 6.8 percent of home loans for 50-plus whites in 2011, who tended to have more of the standard prime loans. Blacks, though, had more than three times that percentage of subprime loans, 21.8 percent, and it was 12.9 percent for 50-plus Latino borrowers.

AARP’s report adds, “A recent settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Bank of America supports the allegation that lenders unfairly targeted African American and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans.”

Stating that “the housing crisis is far from over,” the report calls for a range of policy solutions. It urges more help be provided to seniors with loan modification and reduction of principals, especially where housing prices have plunged well below the original principal used as the basis for the mortgage. The report also recommends increased mediation programs; more access to housing counseling and legal assistance programs; and development of short-term financial assistance programs.

Affordable Housing Wobbles as Redevelopment Agencies Close

2012-04-30T08:00:00Z

Affordable housing advocates across California are scrambling for alternative sources of funding following the closure of the state’s redevelopment agencies last February.

A state law upheld by the California Supreme Court mandated the dismantling, which aims to redirect billions in property tax earnings held by the redevelopment agencies (RDAs) back to local governments to help close a huge gap in the state’s general fund.

The demise of California’s 425 RDAs “comes at a very bad time,” says Rachel Iskow, executive director of the Sacramento Yolo Mutual Housing Association.

Money coming from the federal housing program has been substantially reduced. The $2.9 billion generated by the state’s Proposition 1C bonds -- enacted by California voters in 2006 for various types of housing -- are almost gone, and a sluggish development market has reduced money for local low-cost housing trust funds to a trickle.

“The end of redevelopment agencies significantly shrinks the total supply of financing for affordable housing,” Iskow explains.

She adds that her private nonprofit has built more than 900 homes in the Sacramento-Yolo area. It serves an ethnically diverse community of mostly “workers earning an average of $20,000 a year for a family of four people.”

It must now put a hold on the construction of 100 apartment units on six acres and the renovation of a decrepit 150-unit housing complex, all meant for low-wage workers. It also stands to lose well-trained professional housing managers and neighborhood advocacy organizers, says Holly Wunder Stiles, the group’s housing development director.

Ready Source of Housing Funds

Redevelopment agencies served as the second largest source of funding for affordable housing in the state for 65 years. Local RDAs zoned out rundown or blighted areas, held down property values within them, and borrowed funds for infrastructure improvements — roads, services, open spaces -- to attract private developers.

Once the property values in the redeveloped area rose, RDAs kept the incremental increase in property tax earnings for their exclusive use. This amounted to 12 percent of all property taxes collected in California, currently around $5 billion a year. By law, 20 percent of RDAs’ share of the new tax revenues went back to the county or city for affordable housing.

After the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which slashed property tax revenues, cities relied on RDA funds to build affordable housing and rehabilitate blighted areas. From 1998 to 2001 RDA money helped build 16,714 units, more than 75 percent of which were for low-income households, according to a Cal State Fullerton, Dept of Economics study.

Gov. Brown’s Push

Governor Jerry Brown pushed for the RDAs’ dismantling, in hopes of freeing up billions in property tax revenues held by the RDAs to ease the $26-billion crunch in the state budget by at least $1.7 billion. His push gained traction because RDAs became vulnerable to criticism over the years.

Some of that criticism was directed at RDAs’ diversion of as much as $5 billion a year in statewide property tax funds from local governments, depriving schools, law enforcement and other services of much-needed money. They also have been accused of serving as subsidies for private developers.

Critics also charged that the criteria designating an area for redevelopment were loosely defined, while by 2009 RDAs had incurred huge debts -- $29 billion in outstanding bonds. Oakland’s RDA alone owes $160 million.

And while the Cal State Fullerton, Dept of Economics 2002 study noted RDAs’ contribution to the state’s housing stock, it also found that they had very small low-to- moderate housing funds, insufficient to have a dramatic impact on affordable housing overall.

Feeling the Pinch

With RDAs gone, large cities — Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco and sprawling suburban centers in Southern California and the Central Valley -- that benefited the most from redevelopment money are suddenly feeling the pinch.

Thousand Oaks may lose up to $20 million in cash and $10 million in assets. Oakland used most of its $39 million in RDA funds to support citywide staff salaries ($3.7 million for police; $3.2 million for city attorneys staff; half the salaries of city council members). The demise of its RDA will cut 160 jobs in 11 departments.

San Francisco may be able to stand the hit, reports the San Francisco Planning and Research Association (SPUR). As a successor agency to its RDA, the city government transferred redevelopment funds and assets to the Mayor’s office of housing and City Administrator’s office; so affordable housing and existing redevelopment projects stand to be protected.

As both a city and county San Francisco does not have to send its redevelopment money to a separate county government where funds will be divided up among cities -- unlike Oakland or San Jose, which are just part of larger counties.

“Redevelopment here in Hercules was under water even when it was around,” explains Hercules city manager Steve Duran, “but dismantling it sure doesn’t help.”

For Hercules, a middle-class community east of San Francisco with a diverse population, the end of redevelopment means “no money for affordable housing subsidies and no capital funds for potential infrastructure projects,” says Duran.

On top of this drought, a private financial guarantor is suing Hercules because its RDA defaulted on a $2.4 million bond, and the city is accused of diverting RDA funds to its operations. If it loses the suit, it could go bankrupt.

Banking on New Legislation

Housing advocates are now pinning their hopes on state legislation for a new source of funds, a statewide housing trust fund, which will be a permanent source of funding for affordable housing.

State Senate President pro tem Darrel Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) introduced Senate Bill 1220, which will charge a $75-fee per document recording of non-sale real estate transactions -- maps, easements, liens, title changes and notices of default.

Funds collected will go to the dedicated state housing trust fund. Thirty-nine states have such trust funds, but California has none. Supporters estimate that the fee collection could raise “$300 million in years with low activity and $722 million in high-activity years.”

The trust fund will support the construction of affordable housing, the renovation of distressed housing stock, and foreclosure prevention and homebuyer assistance programs.

The California Association of Realtors dropped its opposition to the bill once it was made clear that the purchase and transfer of residential and commercial property will be exempt from the fee.

“All of the state’s affordable housing advocates are focused on building support for this bill right now,” says Iskow.

After Foreclosures, Hidden Addictions Emerge Among Elders

2012-04-23T08:00:00Z

Editor's Note: This story, is part of a series exploring the impact of the recession on health care for poor people. Dr. Sanjay Basu, MD PhD is a resident physician in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco.

Herman, a 61-year-old black man, sat on an exam table at San Francisco General Hospital’s General Medicine Clinic. He nervously tugged at the felt edge of his fedora hat. As his doctor, I asked him -- as tactfully as possible under the circumstances -- if he would submit to a drug test.

I had been Herman’s doctor for almost three years, but I could tell that this was clearly the first time anyone had asked Herman if he was taking drugs.

Herman was not pleased.

Increasingly, physicians are asking elderly patients like Herman -- patients near or even past retirement age - -if they have been taking illicit drugs. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of positive tests has increased by over four-hundred-thousand during the recession, especially among the elderly who have experienced the greatest number of home foreclosures.

A few years ago, at our first visit together, I asked Herman about his life. He was divorced. His mother lived in Oakland; his daughter had moved to the Midwest after getting married. He was alone and not exactly alone -- the way many elderly Americans find themselves.

He showed me what he did for a living -- sketching out an architectural diagram of the Bay Bridge reconstruction -- the complex physics of moving massive metal panels. It was Herman's way of telling me how proud he was, as a black man who went to segregation-era schools in Alabama, to have become a civil engineer.

But after the start of the recession, Herman quietly asked our receptionist to change his insurance designation to “self pay.” He had been handed a pink slip at work.

The Great Recession did not undermine his life in one blow, but with many humiliations and defeats, over weeks, then months. One day, Herman stood in the door of the clinic holding two Samsonites, his chihuahua in tow, clicking its paws across the white office tiles.

“Foreclosure,” Herman sighed as he sat down. “Everything I have left is in these bags.”

He was on his way to the East Bay to live with his mother. But -- always being prompt -- he hadn’t wanted to miss his usual doctor's appointment. He apologized for having nowhere to put his belongings.

Herman appeared unkempt for the first time. Like many of the clinic's oldest patients, he was the type of person who had always been meticulous about his appearance -- wearing a sport’s coat to the doctor's office. The week of his foreclosure marked a transition. He was perspiring, his hair tousled and his shirt dirty and partly unbuttoned. The foreclosure of his home completed, the foreclosure of his body was apparent.

Hypertension is often a medical consequence for persons facing financial distress. Herman had been diligent about taking his medications, but suddenly his blood pressure recordings crept upwards. “I’ll be honest,” he explained. “At this point, it’s the pills or the poultry.” He meant that he was forced to sacrifice his prescription co-payments to pay for groceries.

At subsequent visits, Herman casually asked whether medical research had found a cure for insomnia, then laughed at the suggestion that he might be depressed. He started nodding off in the middle of his doctor visits. He began to mumble, and complained of abdominal pain and chronic constipation.

After he had taken offense at my suggestion of a drug test, he complied and submitted a urine sample. Like many other elderly patients, he tested positive for drugs.

According to a statistician at the Department of Public Health, who wished to remain anonymous in an interview, San Francisco has been witnessing a “geriatric crack epidemic.” Particularly at the start of the recession, many emergency room doctors saw the resurgence of a variety of drugs and of drug use -- once only associated with the young and out-of-work -- now common among the elderly who have lost their pensions and property.

In Herman’s case, his urine wasn’t positive for crack, but for oxycodone, a painkiller. A few weeks after having moved to his mother's house in Oakland, Herman had found his mother’s pill bottle in the bathroom cabinet, stashed away from after her hip surgery. At first, the pills let him sleep. Then they made him numb. Then he "just needed them."

Confronted with the positive test, Herman just sucked in his lips, like a child after a misdeed confronted by evidence from an adult. His chihuahua shuffled under the chair and lowered its head to its paws with an exhausted snort.

Herman entered a rehab facility. He was one of the lucky ones. The rehab facility has been overwhelmed with patients since the recession began. He spent several sweaty nights there, emerging clean again.

But he is still without his home, or a job. Each time he comes to clinic with a forced smile, often averting the eyes of our staff.

He utters only a few words at the start of each visit to my office. "Doc, we can talk about my high-blood pressure again," he says. I oblige.

San Francisco Murder of Five Spotlights Asian Gambling Addiction

2012-03-29T07:10:00Z

SAN FRANCISCO – What drove Binh Thai Luc, 35, to be charged this week with slaying five people in a San Francisco home last week? The grisly murders have rocked the city and left investigators and the public searching for a motive.

“We’re not discussing any potential motive for these killings,” stated Omid Talai, spokesman for San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, who said he couldn’t comment further because the investigation is ongoing. Asked whether gambling might be involved, he replied, “We’ll be exploring everything.”

News media reports have suggested that the killer may have been trying to collect on gambling debts. Although gambling addiction affects every group, researchers have found unusually high levels among Asians.

The website of the Responsible Gambling Council (RGC) notes, “A regional study in California shows that 35 to 42 percent of Asian American casino clientèle are problem gamblers, a much higher rate than in the general population.”

Growing Problem Can Erupt in Violence

For the city’s Asian residents, the violent nature of the crime in their communities – Luc, could face the death penalty, is of Chinese-Vietnamese descent and the victims were all Chinese – has stirred suspicions that it could be tied to gambling, a growing problem in the community that has sometimes erupted in violence.

“Gambling is a huge problem in the Chinese community,” said Kent Woo, executive director of the NICOS Chinese Health Coalition located in San Francisco’s Chinatown. (NICOS is an acronym for the group’s five founding organizations.)

Woo co-founded the Chinese Community Problem Gambling Project, a California-wide program that runs a gambling hotline, offers counseling services and does research and outreach.
A survey the group conducted in 1997 found that 70 percent of Chinese Americans in San Francisco believe gambling is a problem in their community.

Woo said money issues stemming from problem gambling and crime often go hand in hand.

“It’s actually somewhat common for our clients to report that they have gone to loan sharks for money,” said Woo, adding that loan sharks scout casinos and card rooms looking for desperate gamblers, who have run out of money. In some cases, Woo continued, loan sharks bribe casino staff to track customers who are losing money.

In June 2010, California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gaming Control cracked down on an Asian loan-sharking ring at the tribal casinos outside of Sacramento.

The bureau arrested five lenders, who allegedly charged exorbitant interest rates--5 to 10 percent every week--and threatened borrowers and their family members to collect debts.

One lender, a member of a violent international gang in China, used his ties to pressure borrowers by threatening their family members back home.

The number of people calling the NICOS hotline doubled to 300 calls from 2009 to 2011. Most of callers have a debt of about $50,000 dollars before they reach out for help.

Why Asians?

Tony Nguyen, a counselor and business analyst at the Southeast Asian Community Center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, said a lot of immigrants gamble because they are exposed to it at a young age. It is culturally accepted in Asian culture, and gambling is often part of holidays and celebrations.

Nguyen, who provides assistance to small businesses in need of loans and start-up assistance, said his mainly Vietnamese clients struggle for employment and tend to have lower-incomes. But, that doesn’t stop them from gambling away money they can’t afford to lose.

“They go to work and get a paycheck. The first thing they do is go to the casino and burn it,” he said.

“They always hope they can make the big bucks and once in awhile they make money, but then they come back the next day [to the casino] to burn it again.”

Compulsive or pathological gambling come with a wide range of signs, such as preoccupation, restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop, "chasing" losses with more money, lying and performing illegal acts.

According to the RGC website, “The issue is more severe in the Asian American community, with pockets of the population experiencing trends of acute problem gambling -- especially in areas with high concentrations of casinos, such as California and Connecticut.”

Nguyen, the business analyst with the Southeast Asian Community Center, observed that problem gambling affects Vietnamese men of all ages. He also said he sees many women gamblers, who are trying to make “quick money.”

Recently, Nguyen said, he’s seen a disturbing trend: Homeowners who resort to gambling to come up with large sums of money to save their homes from foreclosure.

Woo, the director of the Bay Area's NICOS health coalition, says Asians may be attracted to gambling because of their immigration experience. People who are willing to start a new life in another country are generally greater risk-takers, and more likely to gravitate toward the risk-taking nature of gambling, he said.

Casinos Make It Easy

Nguyen emphasized that the proliferation of casinos in the Bay Area has made it easier for people to gamble without having to go to Reno, Lake Tahoe or Las Vegas.

“There are so many casinos in the Bay Area now. People can go there anytime they want until they lose all their money, until their last dollar,” he said, adding that many casinos offer lines of credit to special customers.

“It's obvious that casino operators know they can make money off Vietnamese, and that's why they provide free transportation, and sometimes other premiums,” said Vu Hao Nhien, an editor for Nguoi Viet, a Vietnamese-language daily based in Westminster, Calif.

“The casinos near Little Saigon would have been so empty on a week day, if not for the Vietnamese, who are there all the time. It's gotten so that they even serve pho and Chinese noodle soup,” Nhien said.

For some Asian immigrants, “casinos have become main social institutions, replacing churches, family associations, restaurants, et cetera,” said Timothy Fong, assistant clinical psychiatry professor and co-director of the Gambling Studies Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. He spoke during a University of Massachusetts, Boston, forum on problem gambling in the Asian American community.

Jennie Hua, a counselor for NICOS’ gambling hotline, said gambling fills a void in people’s lives.

"The main reason that Chinese men take on gambling is that they don't have much social life or hobbies. Therefore, they choose casinos to kill the time,” she said.

Also, Hua said, many seniors are attracted to casinos to fill their time: “Their kids are moving away, they find that they don't have many friends to hang out with, they then go to casinos."

Nam Paik, pastor of the Northern California Deaf Church based in Fremont, Calif., has long worked with Korean-community members struggling with gambling addiction. He recently launched a Korean-language website where visitors can join an anonymous online forum to discuss their problems with gambling.

"When Koreans first arrive in the U.S., they often find themselves isolated from mainstream society and unaware of many of the recreational diversions available,” said Paik. With Las Vegas and other major gambling centers nearby, it becomes an easily available source of entertainment, he added.

Family Impact

Although problem gambling can lead to violence in isolated cases, the more typical impacts on families can still be devastating.

“I can see broken families, divorces, lost jobs I see that,” said Nguyen of the Southeast Asian Community Center.

In a commentary published by Silicon Valley De-Bug in 2010, contributor Thuy Ngo described the fallout of her stepfather’s gambling addiction of her family life in San Jose, Calif.

“I sometimes think his actions were a result of a long rocky marriage, feelings of depression, and a loss of hope that things would ever get better. In the end there was a lot of analyzing we all did, the what-ifs or the could-bes. But at the end of my mom’s marriage to him, the finalization of their divorce was his only wake-up call to his gambling addiction.”

Ngo concluded, “There was nothing that could get him to stop his addiction. I think things could have gotten worse, and at least, we all survived.”

New America Media’s Aruna Lee, Andrew Lam and Summer Chiang contributed reporting.

Protesters Hold Vigil for Deported L.A. Mom

2012-03-09T09:00:00Z

En Español

LOS ANGELES -- On the verge of tears, Gerardo Quiñonez said he didn’t know what the future holds for him, now that he has lost both his home and his wife, Blanca Cardenas, who was recently deported to Mexico by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Blanca, the mother of a 14-year-old son, Luis, and a 19-month-old daughter, Gloria, was arrested and deported while protesting the foreclosure of her former home two weeks ago.

On Tuesday evening, protesters joined Quiñonez, an immigrant from the Mexican state of Durango, who is now a U.S. citizen, to hold a candlelight vigil outside the house where he lived for 10 years.

Quiñonez said he and wife had been fighting with Bank of America to keep their home. The couple filed for bankruptcy, thinking that would protect them from foreclosure, but it didn’t: the bank sold their house to a new owner.

During the vigil, police told protesters that no one would be able to enter the house until the case was settled in court. Quiñonez took the news as a positive sign.

Quiñonez, who said he was devastated, was in good spirits as a result of the support of the protesters and community organizations. Gloria Saucedo, president of Hermandad Mexicana, one of the groups that participated in the vigil, said the family is facing a double tragedy: the loss of their home and the separation of their family.

"Immigration laws are broken; that's why we have to fight to change laws," said Saucedo, who noted that the Latino community is the most affected by the foreclosure crisis and no one seems to be helping them.

Saucedo said her organization is working with 100 Latino families to fight the foreclosure crisis.

“We’ve been fighting the foreclosure of homes for three years, with a 15 percent success rate of homeowners being able to keep their homes,” she said.

The Sanchez family, who lost their home four years ago, and the González family, who lost their home two years ago, were not among the 15 percent.

"It's really hard, with a lack of jobs and expensive mortgages," said the González family, who said those were key factors in the loss of their San Fernando home.

The two families joined in the vigil to show their support for Blanca and her husband Gerardo.

“We are here to support Blanca, hoping other families don’t have to face separation and the loss of their homes. It’s [happening to] them now, we don’t know [who it could happen to] tomorrow,” they said.

On Sunday, Occupy L.A. and other civic organizations are planning a march that will leave from Placita Olvera at 10:00 a.m. to protest deportation and foreclosure.

Manifestantes realizan una vigilia para madre deportada de Los Angeles

2012-03-09T09:00:00Z

Read in English

Los Ángeles, Cal.- Al borde del llanto, Gerardo Quiñonez, dijo no saber que futuro le depara ante la perdida no solo de su vivienda sino también de su esposa Blanca Cárdenas deportada recientemente a México por la Oficina de Control de Inmigración y Aduana (ICE).

Blanca madre de 2 hijos, Luis y Gloria de un año y 7 meses, fue arrestada y luego deportada al enfrentar una orden de desalojo hace 15 días.

Ayer por la tarde apoyado por organizaciones civiles que luchan contra la perdida de vivienda, Quiñonez -mexicano inmigrante del estado de Durango y ahora ciudadano de los Estados Unidos-, realizó una vigilia frente a la casa que por 10 años habitó esperando que el banco sea justo con su familia quien además de la perdida de su hogar enfrenta su separación.

Quiñones, dice que su esposa y él estaban peleando su casa con el banco de américa. La pareja se declaró en quiebra pensando que los protegería de una ejecución hipotecaria, pero no fue así y el banco vendió su casa a un nuevo propietario.

Durante la vigilia, Quiñonez fue notificado por alguien de los participantes de la manifestación que la policía les comunicó que nadie iba entrar a la vivienda hasta que se arreglara su caso en la corte. Hecho que la gente tomó como un triunfo.

Sin embargo, Quiñonez dijo sentirse destrozado, pero con buen ánimo por el apoyo de la gente y de organizaciones civiles como Hermandad Mexicana quien en voz de su presidenta Gloria Saucedo dijo que la familia de Blanca Cárdenas enfrenta una tragedia por la perdida de su casa y la deportación.

“Las leyes de inmigración están fracturadas, es por eso que tenemos que luchar para que cambien las leyes”, dijo Saucedo quien señaló que la comunidad hispana es la más afectada por la crisis hipotecaria y nadie los está ayudando.

Saucedo dice que ellos están trabajando con 100 familias hispanas para luchar en contra de la ejecución hipotecaria.

“Tenemos 3 años luchando contra el despojo de casas, con un 15 por ciento de éxito de que los dueños se queden con su casa reveló”.

En ese bajo porcentaje no se encuentra la familia Sánchez y González, la primera perdió su casa hace 4 años y la última hace 2 años. La familia González quien tenía su casa en el área de San Fernando perdió su batalla con el banco y fue desalojada.

“Es muy duro, la falta de trabajo y las hipotecas caras”, dice la familia González fue el factor para la perdida de su vivienda.

Esta tarde ambas familias se unieron a la vigilia para mostrar su apoyo a Blanca y su esposo Gerardo. “Estamos aquí para apoyar a Blanca, esperando que no les suceda a otras familias la separación y la perdida de sus viviendas. Ahorita son ellos mañana no sabemos”, mencionaron.
Ocupamos L.A. conjuntamente con otras organizaciones civiles planean para este domingo una marcha que saldrá a las 10:00 a.m. de la Placita Olvera para protestar en contra de la deportación y la ejecución hipotecaria.

L.A. Mom Deported After Protesting Foreclosure of Home

2012-03-06T19:30:00Z

LOS ANGELES – Activists from Occupy Fights Foreclosures are holding a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for Blanca Cardenas, the 37-year-old mother of a baby girl, who was deported last week. Cardenas was arrested by Los Angeles police officers Feb. 22 for trespassing, while she and her husband were protesting the foreclosure of their former home. Although she posted bail, she was held in jail for one week and then deported to Mexico on Feb. 29 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Cardenas is the mother of a 19-month-old girl and a 14-year-old son who are both U.S. citizens. Her husband is also a U.S. citizen.

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Homeowners, Advocates Call for Temporary Stop to Foreclosures in California

2012-02-19T13:35:00Z

SAN FRANCISCO, CA— A week after Attorney General Kamala Harris announced an $18 billion settlement for California’s foreclosure victims, homeowners and housing rights advocates declared the need to temporarily halt all foreclosure related activity.

During a foreclosure roundtable discussion held on Friday at the Mission Economic Development Agency, Alan Fisher, Executive Director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, said that advocate “groups are asking for a pause in foreclosures so people don’t lose their homes [while the settlement is being implemented.]”

John Eller, a senior organizer with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), said that by putting a temporary stop to the foreclosures “it would enable borrowers to have some breathing room while they figure out if they qualify for the settlement.”

“It will take months to implement the settlement and while they’re trying, people are still being foreclosed on. We need to put a pause [on foreclosures],” agreed Vivian Richardson, a homeowner from San Francisco’s Bay View area who is seeking principal reduction on her loan.

“Our office agrees that that would be a beneficial step,” said Shum Preston, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office, on a foreclosure moratorium.

Fisher explained that the banks would also benefit from a pause in the foreclosure process, “This would give them a chance to become operational on the settlement.” Fisher continued that without the pause, “the banks would be continuing to service loans and file foreclosure notices, instead of focusing on a new approach and loan modifications.”

In February 2009, then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a 90-day moratorium on California home foreclosures into law. However consumer advocates criticized the law, entitled the California Foreclosure Prevention Act, for its wide loopholes and exemptions for mortgage service providers who met certain minimum criteria.

Housing advocates are not asking for a moratorium per se in this case, because they do not want to limit their call to action to the legislature alone. “We need to stop all foreclosure activity until due process for the borrowers is in place. Whether that’s local or state legislation, legal action, or voluntary action by the banks – somehow this has to happen,” said Eller.

Eller’s concern regarding violations of due process for borrowers was partly a result of the findings from an audit, conducted by mortgage investigation firm Aequitas, of 382 San Francisco homes that went through foreclosure between 2009 and 2011. Released this week by Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, the audit found that 84% of foreclosures contained at least one clear violation of California’s foreclosure laws.

While Attorney General Harris has been widely praised for the $18 billion deal she negotiated - $12 billion more than what was discussed in the fall - homeowners who have suffered from violations such as those found in Ting’s audit said that it still fails to fully address the damage done during the foreclosure crisis.

Homeowners who were victims of robo-signing and lost their homes to foreclosure from 2008-2011 will receive $2,000 as a part of the multi-state settlement.

“Somebody told us they would offer us $2,000 – that’s just a slap in my face,” said Rolando Peña, a San Francisco resident who was evicted from his home six months ago. “Now we are renting a house, paying $2,350 a month in rent. How are we going to recover our money?” he questioned.

Norma Garcia, senior attorney at Consumers Union, echoed Pena’s concerns, “There’s no doubt that when you compare $2,000 to the loss of a home, we’re not talking about anything that’s even comparable.”

Richardson expressed her concerns, “It’s good for the 25,000 homeowners who will get the help, but mine is going to be a continued fight outside of all of this.”

Richardson’s lender is Deutsche Bank, which is not one of the five (Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo) that are part of the settlement.

Some homeowners viewed the settlement as being so inadequate that they would have been better off without it.

Reverend Archbishop Franzo King, a Bayview resident and founder of the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, whose house is set for auction on March 5th expressed confusion about why there was excitement about the settlement. “I was excited when Harris wasn’t getting involved. It should be without compromise. I am feeling that we’ve been betrayed.”

“If you put a knife in my back that’s 10 inches long and you pull it out 7 inches,” he noted, “I still got a knife in my back.”

HUD Secretary Details Homeowner Help in $25 Billion Settlement

2012-02-11T08:20:00Z

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The $25 billion home mortgage settlement announced this week will be especially important for ethnic families, said Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, in a call-in press briefing Friday.

Acknowledging that the mortgage crisis has affected millions of Americans, “particularly African-American, Latino and other minority families who were targeted for predatory loans and other practices,” Donovan provided more details on the huge settlement between 49 state attorneys general and five of the largest mortgage servicing firms, which signed the deal. Only Oklahoma did not sign on.

Latinos, Blacks Lost Most Wealth

He estimated that Latinos lost “roughly two-thirds of their wealth in just the four years before President Obama set foot in the Oval Office.” African-Americans lost about half their wealth during the same period. He said he did not have the numbers of those eligible categorized by minority groups.

Donovan said the settlement “can’t undo the pain of this crisis simply by writing a check.” He also conceded that even if the settlement fulfills its objectives, will it not alone solve the mortgage crisis’s detrimental impact on the economy.

Rather, Donovan said, he saw the settlement as taking an important step on the “path toward stability for our housing market.” Other steps, he noted, are initiatives such as HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization program and Project Rebuild, a $15 billion program he said would re-employ approximately 250,000 construction workers—if it need gets congressional approval.

Under the mortgage settlement, those who hold Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages are not covered. However, borrowers whose mortgages were handled by Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo will have several options to seek reimbursements and the possibility of mortgage restructuring.

Donovan specifically addressed a provision in the settlement that he said has been misunderstood. He explained that about 750,000 borrowers, who were inappropriately charged servicing fees or whose paperwork was misplaced, will be eligible to receive between $1,500 and $2,000 each--without having to sue separaretly for the compensation.

However, contrary to some initial public reaction, he said, these payments, totaling $1.5 billion of the settlement, do not represent the full extent of direct financial compensation to those who lost their homes.

Donovan explained that full compensation will be available through a separate process. Additionally, because mortgage holders are forfeiting no legal rights under the settlement, consumers still have the option of taking their respective lender to court.

Mortgage Holders Can Renegotiate Principal

At the heart of the settlement is not only the money targeted for specific states or pruposes, such as to expand housing counseling services, but the opportunity for homeowners to negotiate with their lenders to reduce the principal amount their mortgage rate is based on.

This will help many whose houses are now “under water,” with mortgages more expensive than the post-recession value of their property, to remain in their homes.

Donovan said there will be incentives for the mortgage lenders built into the process. In addition, he continued, Bank of America, which acquired one of the most egregious predatory lenders, Countrywide, will be taking more extensive actions to redress loan delinquencies.

Military mortgage holders are also being extended options designed to fit their often unique circumstances. For instance, active duty personnel are frequently required to relocate when some are holding mortgages that exceed the value of their homes in a depressed market. Donovan said special benefits will be available to them.

In addition, Donovan said the Homeowner Bill of Rights, recently proposed by President Obama, would also go a long way to provide transparency for those seeking a mortgage.

“No more lost paperwork, no more run-arounds, no more excuses,” Donovan said.

The HUD Secretary said the settlement process will be overseen by an independent monitor with enforcement through the courts. He went on that the full details of the plan have yet to be determined, and he estimated that it will take about a month before eligible mortgage holders will begin to be contacted in an outreach process that will probably take between six and nine months.

In the meantime, Donovan said information on the settlement is available is now at www.mortgagesettlement.com.