Public Ire is Preventing Foreclosures

February 27th, 2009 | Tags: Foreclosure Notice

People are no longer taking it lying down and public ire is now preventing foreclosure evictions. Hitherto the victims used to meekly pack their bags and go under the belief that the borrowers were the main cause of the crisis. But now the view has changed and the people are taking a stand. Their opposition has been given an organized shape by ACORN.

In 2008 neighbours joined hands with activists in Boston and formed a chain outside eight properties in Boston that had been foreclosed so as to stop the authorities from forcibly putting the residents on to the streets.

The foreclosure crisis has taken on such a destructive character that sheriffs in some states are refusing to enforce court eviction orders. Sheriff Warren C. Evans (Wayne County, Michigan) put on hold all evictions from 2nd February waiting for the federal government to disclose plans about the foreclosure victims. Sheriff Thomas J. Dart (Cook County, Illinois) asked a lawyer to review all orders relating to eviction so as to protect the tenants who remained current on their rent payments even after the houses they resided in were foreclosed upon. Sheriff Richard K. Jones of Butler County ordered his officials not to evict those who had no alternative place to go to. He said, “This is a cold place in the winter and I will not give people a death sentence for not paying their debts. These are human beings, responsible middle-class people who fell on hard times, and I just can’t toss them out onto the streets.”

In the 80’s a similar movement had taken shape when squatters took over thousands of deserted buildings owned by the city, in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and other cities. The aim was to solve the housing crisis of the working people.

The foreclosure crisis is at its worst in Orlando, Boston, Houston, Baltimore, Oakland, Tucson and other cities. Here ACORN has been active in creating a network of alert systems to warn the neighbours that eviction parties are on their way. Immediately the volunteers converge on the marked houses while some others contact the media. Lawyers sympathetic to their cause are defending the arrested without taking fees.

Recently the campaigners who had named themselves Home Defenders enrolled 500 volunteers during meetings held in New York other five cities. It is anticipated the soon the number will snowball into tens of thousands.