*** NEWS ADVISORY ***

 

For Immediate Release

Contact: Lisa Epstein 561.512.0972

December 5, 2011

 

“Occupy Our Homes” Day, Tuesday, Dec. 6, to Launch National Campaign

Actions in Palm Beach County, Florida and Other Cities Spotlight How Wall Street Crashed the Economy, Drove Families from Homes, and Ripped Off Communities

Palm Beach, December 6th

10-11:30am Courtroom 2D in Palm Beach County Court. Court provided “Legal Training” to teach Bank Lawyers (aka Foreclosure Mill Firms) how to get their paperwork spiffed up in order to foreclose more homes from Floridians. We did a public records request asking probing questions about this event.

6-8p Fraudclosure Devastation Candlelight Vigil 5308 Lake Osborne Drive, Lake Worth, Florida 33461 (Between 6th & Lantana – south of 6th, north of Lantana). Bring signs!


Supporters Will Hold Candlelight Vigils, Demonstrate at County Courthouses, Oppose Fraudulent Foreclosures, Confront Courthouse Home Auctions, “Reclaim” Vacant Houses, and Engage in “Home Defense” to Keep Families in Foreclosed Homes

 

Communities in Palm Beach County, Florida and across America will take direct action on Tuesday, Dec. 6, to challenge Wall Street profiteering that has created a housing crisis for millions of families.

Actions will include court observation and documentation of bank biased foreclosure judges who refuse to honor citizens’ constitutional due process and property rights, attendance at a court sponsored legal advice training for foreclosure mill attorneys. An evening candlelight vigil to mourn the lack of criminal prosecutions for the financial services elites who plotted and profited from the financial crisis. The vigil will also highlight the widespread damage caused by Wall Street’s “financial innovation” that preyed on Americans across the nation from origination of predatory loans, to false modification offers, to legal document fraud, to fraud upon our courts, to foreclosure fraud.

Other cities where direct action will be taken include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland (OR), and many more.

Homeowners and renters facing foreclosure-related evictions will be backed locally by ForeclosureHamlet.org, 4closureFraud.org, Occupy Palm Beach, and a national network of organizations such as The New Bottom Line and its local affiliates; ReFund California; New York Communities for Change; Occupy Wall Street; Take Back the Land; and SOUL (Chicago).

These actions build on a number of recent successes in community resistance to foreclosures and evictions.

The national Occupy Our Homes campaign challenges a deliberate Wall Street strategy that has made billions for those at the top while devastating the 99%:

  • Banks created a housing bubble, deliberately designing predatory loans based on a fraudulent heavily inflated appraisals, with balloon payments, variable rates, and other features that would yield short-term profits while preying on families least able to pay.
  • They knew that many of these loans could not be repaid, but they didn’t care because they planned to package and re-sell the mortgages to our counties, pensions, 401ks, and savings funds. We, as the investors, were then were left holding the bag, while the bank that issued millions of predatory loans bet that those same mortgages would fail in order to reap massive profits at the expense of families and our retirement funds.
  • The economy crashed as a result of this bank-created house of cards, putting tens of millions of Americans out of work. Unemployment is overwhelmingly the primary cause of foreclosures, not over-extended consumers.
  • More than 6 million Americans have lost their homes, often through illegal foreclosures, and another 5 million are at risk. Many homeowners were told that if they stopped making payments, they could qualify for a lower rate. When they did so, the banks put them in default and initiated foreclosure.
  • The 99% bailed out Wall Street, while Wall Street bailed on our communities, taking our money for outrageous executive salaries and bonuses and massive profits. We gave Wall Street $700 billion in taxpayer money through TARP, and another $7.7 trillion in nearly interest-free loans of taxpayer money through the Federal Reserve. Bank profits in the third quarter of 2011 were more than $35 billion – higher than they were before the crash.
  • The bank-induced crash devastated home values and life savings for all homeowners.
  • Yet, the banks claim that they should escape all liability and prosecution, be given full immunity, hide from investigation, and be able to collect mortgage payments based on the value of homes based on fraudulent values they inflated before the crash they caused, rather than current market value. Nineteen percent of Florida mortgages are either in foreclosure or delinquent. At least one in four homeowners is now “underwater” – meaning the bank wants them to make payments on a higher mortgage than what the house is worth.
  • Wall Street is draining hundreds of billions of dollars from communities by demanding artificially inflated mortgage payments — money that is needed to support local jobs and small businesses and get the economy working again for the 99%.

Please contact us if you would like to be kept informed as Occupy Our Homes actions unfold.

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4closureFraud.org