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