Standing up for the Myrna Millingtons
looks at the struggle of homeowners threatened with foreclosure as a new campaign to stop evictions launched by the activist group ACORN gets underway in New York City and around the country.
WHAT DO you do when your 73-year-old grandmother is being threatened with being put out on the streets?
Not many of us have been faced with such a dilemma in our lifetime, but the prospects of having to confront it have increased exponentially over the past 12 months. Unless you've been living under a rock, or you're a Wall Street titan, you realize that the foreclosure rate in the United States is single-handedly changing the landscape of our country.
Now the real question is: In what direction do we want our beloved country to change? Regardless of your attitude towards change, it is, by and large, agreed that this change will be of gargantuan proportions.
How ironic that the very symbol of the soundness of our capitalist society--land and home ownership--would be the very force leading us to question the viability of the system.
In order to answer the question of which direction we want America to change, we must clearly define the word we.
Are we John Boehner, the Republican House leader who recently questioned President Barack Obama's $275 billion proposal to deal with the foreclosure crisis. "Does your plan compensate banks for the bad mortgages they should never had made in the first place?" Boehner asked. "Will individuals who misrepresented their income or assets on their original mortgage application be eligible to get taxpayer funded assistance?"
Are we Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who, despite not taking a bonus last year, said, "Compensation is an integral part of the practicality of financial institutions in order to retain talent."
Or maybe we are Myrna Millington, a homeowner in Laurelton, Queens, who banded together with an assortment of local unions, nonprofit groups and members of her community to save her home of nearly 40 years.
"I think it's not fair the banks get all of our funds, and then to let this happen to us little people," Myrna said. "There must be an end to this, and it's got to start somewhere!" That sentiment is resonating throughout our country.
On a brisk Thursday morning, Myrna and over 100 protesters gathered on her front lawn to demand that homeowners get a fair shot at keeping their homes and their livelihoods. Although Myrna's home had been foreclosed on since September 2008, she successfully deferred its auction by seeking loan counseling with ACORN Housing, the non-profit organization that planned the demonstration.
Myrna took a second mortgage on her home to pay for renovations and repairs. Unbeknownst to her, the loan turned out to be sub-prime. Like millions of other homeowners in America, what began as a simple restoration loan turned into Myrna Millington's worst nightmare. The absurd interest rates on Myrna's second mortgage started a downward spiral in her payment schedule, the culmination of which I witnessed in a quiet neighborhood in Queens.
Under the Obama administration's housing plan, Myrna Millington's predicament is far from solved. The plan outlined by Obama on February 18 excludes second mortgages. The administration is disinclined to even try to find the middle ground on a loan modification with a second lender.
There are several more hurdles that Myrna would have to jump over to stay in her home. Our government seems to be taking a very cautious approach to helping the taxpayers who bailed out--and will continue to bail out--the financial system.
That's why we, the Myrna Millingtons of this country, have to be pro-active and take matters into our own hands. "I think we have to stand together to stop this insanity," she told me. "We all live in this community, and we have to fight for each other. We're gonna fight to the end!"
