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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (March 14, 2012)
Local News Homeless Commemoration these disparities. “Homelessness has been a racial issue for a long time,” says Adams. “Sadly, people just take it as a given.” He points to institutional racism in areas such as the prison industrial complex, hous- ing and employment to demonstrate how race plays into poverty. Adams notes that Blacks make up 40 per- cent of the US prison population. Upon release, convicted felons can legally be barred from public housing and employ- Blacks were only allowed to live in certain neighborhoods,” says Adams. “The long standing impact of this still perpetuates today.” According to the study, the median house- hold wealth for Blacks was $5,677 compared to $113,149 for whites (Black and white categories include data for His- panics). Lastly, Adams examines institutional racism in hiring. The study found that Blacks with associ- ate’s degrees had a higher unemployment rate than whites with high school diplomas (10.8 percent and 9.5 percent respec- tively). Also, the report says that a Black male employee with a bachelor’s degree or higher was paid 25.4 percent less on aver- age in weekly salary ($1,010) in 2010 compared to a white male worker ($1,354) with the same education level. “You know what they say, we’re the last ones hired and the first ones fired,” says Ibrahim Mubarak, who runs the Right 2 Dream Too camp in downtown Portland. The camp gives people a place to sleep for 12 or more hours and refers them to social services. It allows families and couples to stay together, allows pets and doesn’t dis- criminate based on sexual orientation, says Mubarak. Mubarak says most people come to the camp because of foreclosure, the splitting up of families and outsourcing of jobs. He says that the camp has helped 13 peo- ‘Homelessness has been a racial issue for a long time. Sadly, people just take it as a given’ ment. In addition, some ex-cons have to make restitution payments, which can be difficult if they’re not able to find employ- ment. Adams says this has an especially nega- tive effect on children who have to deal with the possibility of having their families broken up. He notes that studies have shown children with incarcerated parents have a higher potential for developmental delays. In addition, half of Oregon’s Black children live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. The study also addresses housing discrim- ination. “You had red line areas, which meant The Reverend Yuren Tai from the Seattle Koyasan Buddhist Temple shields the flame of a candle from the wind before the start of a community gathering commemorating the first anniversary of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. About 200 people attended the event Sunday March 11th at the Kobe Bell at Seattle Center. At 2:46 p.m., the time of last year’s earthquake, a minute of silence was observed, followed by the ringing of the Kobe bell by the dignitaries in attendance and members of the public. PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED continued from page 1 ple find work and eight find housing. Although he’s seen mostly white people at Right 2 Dream Too, Mubarak has noticed how the barriers that lead to poverty can have a particularly detrimental effect on Black families. He says there are a lot of Black families couch surfing instead of staying at shelters. “When they say they’re creating afford- able housing, who can afford that housing? These policymakers need to sit at the table with the people that are being affected by poverty,” Mubarak said. The activist suggests that the city is using its homeless population to get funding that isn’t going to those that need it. Currently, the city is imposing fines on the camp that start at $641 for the first two months and double every month after that. Law continued from page 1 while telling homeowners they are working with them to modify their loans. Mediation will cost $200 each for lenders and borrow- ers, but mediators can waive the fee for struggling homeowners. “It ends the dual process that banks have been involved in,” Martin said. “It’s surreal. They tell homeowners they are working with them and have them fill in forms for loan modifications. Then maybe they lose the paperwork and the homeowner has to do the forms again. But all the while the bank is fast-tracking them to foreclosure without their knowledge. So the homeowner can think they will get a loan modification in a week and two days later the bank will fore- close on them. With this law the lender is MORTGAGE DELINQUENCY AND DEFAULT RESOLUTION COUNSELING Under the new foreclosure law before meeting with a lender homeowners must first meet with a HUD-certified housing counselor, available through: African American Alliance for Home- ownership Oregon Plaza Building 825 NE 20th Avenue Portland, Oregon 97232 Phone number: 503-595-3517 Web address: www.aaah.org Clearpoint Financial Solutions 9955 SE Washington, Suite 301 Portland, OR 97216 877-877-1995 Web address: www.clearpointccs.org Hacienda CDC 5136 NE 42nd Ave. Portland, OR 97218 Phone: (503) 961-6413 Web address: www.haciendacdc.org forbidden from doing that.” But the Attorney General’s Office says enforcement was not part of the deal. “While the AG (Attorney General) is given the responsibility of creating the mediation program required by SB 1552, the legislature did not give the AG any authority to enforce violations of the act,” says Tony Green, communications director for the Attorney General’s Office. Asked what that means for enforcement, Green said, “There are questions about enforcement.” Rep. Gene Whisnant, (R-Sunriver), said the law will allow homeowners to sue banks if they don’t comply. “There is recourse; you can sue,” he said. “That’s how it was intended.” The law will apply only to lenders who process 250 or more home foreclosures a year, which means it won’t apply to smaller lenders, such as most credit unions. Com- mercial loans are not covered. The Big Picture Nationally, the Obama administration has created programs to help struggling home- owners remodify their loans. This week the administration announced that the Federal Housing Administration will lower its refi- nancing fees. It also will review military foreclosures to ensure service-members are compensated for illegal foreclosures. HUD also offers several programs, such as HAMP (Homeowners Affordable Modifica- tion Program) and other options that can reduce the loan principal, defer payments for unemployed borrowers, or help home- owners exit loans without foreclosure. “This bill offers a way to put some of the president’s proposals into action,” Angela Martin said. “It will turn them into reality by forcing banks to come to the table and giving homeowners the opportunity to say, ‘I qualify for that program. You have to enroll me in that program.” Across the country, investigators have uncovered multiple cases where banks were found to have abused the foreclosure process and committed fraud through prac- tices such as forging documents and altering dates. Lenders employed “robo-signers,” to sign off on hundreds of thousands of legal documents without having any knowledge of the cases. In many cases, homeowners complained it was impossible to locate the actual owner of their mortgage because the loan had been chopped up and then bundled into multiple packages for sale to investors. When too many of those loans went sour, investor confidence fell and the financial markets collapsed along with the real estate market. The five largest banks (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Ally Finan- cial and Citigroup) last week reached a $25 billion settlement with 49 states, including Oregon, that ends a 16 month investigation into foreclosure abuses. Under that settle- ment, one part of that deal gives Oregon $30 million specifically to help struggling homeowners. According to the Oregon Attorney Gener- al’s Office, which is also responsible for enforcing that settlement, homeowners who have been foreclosed on by one of the five banks will receive $1700. The remainder of the money will be used to bring down the principal of loans and to help struggling homeowners. The Wall Street Journal last week report- ed that banks made record profits in 2011. “Bank net income in 2011 was $119.5 bil- lion, a hike of $34 billion from full-year 2010 earnings,” writes Ronald D. Orol in a Feb. 28 article for the journal’s Market- Watch section. The article also notes that banks still are lending far less than in the past. Martin says the banking industry is responsible for creating the foreclosure cri- BY THE NUMBERS U.S. homeowners lost 1.8 trillion of home equity in the housing crash –about $20,000 per household. 1 in 5 homeowners are underwater and owe more than their homes are worth. Borrowers of color are 30 percent more likely than Whites to have high interest loans even after accounting for income level and credit rating. 5.9 percent of Oregon homeowners are behind with payments. 3.9 percent of Oregon homeowners are in foreclosure. Source: The Center for Responsible Lending sis because its leaders deliberately pursued reckless lending policies they knew could not be sustained. “I’m not excusing any individual borrow- er from responsibility for the loans they took out, however 5.5 million people didn’t wake up one day and decide to throw away their futures. They were sold a bill of goods,” she says. “There were people making enormous profits off the pain they were dealing. This whole crisis started with some really toxic loan products. And they were constructed by financial professionals. They were telling people, ‘We are the financial experts and if you don’t tap into equity, if you don’t buy a home, you are putting your children’s future at risk. “They said ‘We’re the financial profes- sionals, trust us’. And millions of Americans did,” Martin says. “But their loans triggered the financial crisis and now we’re in a place where we have millions of Americans out of work. We lost our jobs because they took our homes.” March 14, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3
