Our partners at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) has just posted more pictures of the event here. These pictures really give you a stronger sense of the volume of people we saw last Saturday!
The partners haven’t done a complete debrief yet, so I’ll be sharing a quick summary of the event in a later post. Long story short: our outreach efforts were a success! Although many of us there were saddened at the long line–at one point the line reached around the block of the Orozco Academy–we were glad to see that they were willing to overcome any embarrassment or shame and come to the event to received education, counseling, and hopefully a solution.
I had promised photos earlier, and I hope I don’t disappoint! I didn’t take any pictures of the fair when it was full swing, since I was feeling very conscious of the fact that many times families from our communities are very much reluctant in having their pictures taken at these sorts of events. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the pictures of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center office in the north side of Chicago, as well pictures of the set up! I wish I had more time to get more pictures of the folks involved in organizing this event, but I’m afraid my pictures will have to suffice for now.
From L to R: myself, Kristen (the Resurrection Project), Romana, Chloe (KRCC)
If you’ve been perusing around this blog and the social networking site, you may have noticed that many of the things I post are on foreclosures. That isn’t to suggest that foreclosure mitigation is the entirety of my work or interests–I hope to blog more on other things–but it has been taking up a lot of mental space.
Why, you ask? Well, National CAPACD has been working with the National Urban League and the National Council of La Raza on focusing the foreclosure mitigation efforts for communities and homeowners of color. While this has been an informal multicultural effort for a good part of 2008, Bank of America has approached the three organizations with an offer to formalize the coalition work under the name of Alliance for Stabilizing our Communities.
The three national groups are kicking off the Alliance with a home retention/rescue fair in Chicago, in partnership with some of our local member organizations. The Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, the Chicago Urban League, and the Resurrection Project (NCLR affiliate) are working together to bring culturally and linguistically competent homeownership education and home retention information to the communities of Chicago. At National CAPACD, I and many of us on staff have spent a lot of time coordinating with the other organizations involved, and I can tell you that we are very excited to see this event launched.
So, Romana and I are in Chicago right now to support KRCC in this event–please check back to the blog and the social network site for pictures of our Chicago members and a report back from the event!
I’d also like to note that this is just another example of the cross-cultural/ethnic efforts that our members are engaging here, especially in Chicago; another one of our Chicago member groups, the Chinese American Service League, is working in conjunction with the Resurrection Project to build additional affordable rental housing here in the Windy City. Unfortunately it looks like Romana and I won’t have time to visit the site or CASL during this visit, but for those of you in Chicago–please feel free to join the social networking site and share pictures! [Actually, that goes for everyone: join! share pictures! ]
Interesting news from two major mortgage lenders: Citi will be placing a moratoriums on foreclosures for mortgages of owner occupied single family units, while Freddie Mac will be extending its moratorium on foreclosures for single and 2-4 unit properties. Citi’s moratorium is clearly more geared towards homeowners, while Freddie Mac’s is geared to both homeowners and renters of foreclosed homes. Many times renters of foreclosure properties have no idea that their apartment is facing foreclosure until the eviction notice comes.
The questions that come to mind are: how successful has Freddie Mac been when it comes to managing all of these rental properties? How feasible is it to do this in the long term? While neither lender is proposing this, the fact that this is an extension of a previous moratorium by Freddie Mac suggests that this is a stop-gap measure while the entire industry is trying to figure things out. Nevertheless, this may have been more effective six months ago, when sub-prime mortgages were seen as the primary culprit, but what about now, when unemployment rates are reaching new highs?
What are your thoughts on this? How is this affecting your neighborhoods?
Of course, there are many other venues to share your organization’s experience with these issues: KnowledgePlex will be hosting an online chat to introduce a new website, Foreclosure-Response.org. The website looks to be another opportunity for community organizations to solicit advice or share best practices on foreclosure mitigation and neighborhood stabilization. If you scroll down on that website, you’ll see that KnowledgePlex will be hosting another online chat to introduce HousingPolicy.org, which will be an opportunity to share ideas on affordable housing policy. The moratoriums will only last so long and can only do so much, so hopefully the discussions both here at National CAPACD’s blog (and soon to be launched social networking site!) and KnowledgePlex’s sites can lay the groundwork for long-term solutions.
These sites are meant to be a forum for folks on the ground, so if you can attend a chat, please don’t be shy about giving feedback–these websites are for you!
As many a homeownership counselor will tell you, pre-purchase counseling plays a huge factor in determining an individual’s risk of foreclosure. Many homeownership counselors have said that the individuals they counseled did not end up in sub-prime or Alt-A loans. The San Francisco Chronicle confirmed that by covering a story about the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA). Jane Duong, MEDA’s homeownership program manager, was quoted in the story, and she has also spoken at several National CAPACD conferences, and she is currently an advisor to the National CAPACD California Network.
Monterey County Herald published an interesting article about the linkage between minorities and foreclosure rates. The Associated Press has conducted research that shows that “one out of five of the nearly 52 million homeowners with a mortgage spend 38 percent or more of their pre-tax income on their mortgage payment, property taxes, and insurance”.
In addition, more than 30 percent of Asian borrowers in California and Florida spend at least 38 percent of their income on housing, leaving them with very little cushion for medical and family emergencies.
Full article can be seen here.
