Local News
March
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should call Mike at 503 267 3192.
Speakers, musicians and spoken word
artists for the event are still being finalized,
but they will include youth and elders.
JoAnn Hardesty will be emcee.
Redeem the Dream March Program
9 to 9:45 a.m. Silent Vigil for Human
Rights at the Bill of Rights Park, Waterfront
Park
10am, at Terry Schrunk Plaza before
heading to Waterfront Park.
The march will proceed along SW 4th
Avenue, moving north, to SW
Pine Street. From there,
marchers will move toward
the Willamette River, to SW
Naito Parkway.
Walking
south on Naito Parkway, the
march will end at The Bowl,
just beyond the Hawthorne
Bridge.
1pm. The rally will begin at
the same time as the national
event in Washington DC.
Confirmed speakers include:
Sen. Jeff Merkley, Governor
Kitzhaber and Oregon Attor-
ney
General
Ellen
Rosenblum. Check our web-
site for the full list of
speakers, spoken word artists
and musicians.
Events to commemorate the
50th Anniversary of the historic
March on Washington, on Aug.
24, are underway in
Washington and around the
country. Portland is holding
Redeem the Dream, the
regional march for civil rights
advocates in the Northwest
Care
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who will qualify for the Oregon Health Plan
under Obamacare.
You can find out if you qualify for help
online at the Cover Oregon website, which
includes a calculator. In Washington you
will find the same information at the Wash-
ington Health Benefit Exchange. Both sites
offer cost and plan comparisons and infor-
mation about how to sign up.
For the first few weeks Oregonians can
sign up through a community partner. The
Urban League, the African American Health
Coalition, Oregon Latino Health Coalition,
are just three of a long list of partners who
are trained to help.
Around mid-October, says Amy Fauver of
Cover Oregon, those who want to sign up
online will be able to do so.
“We’re testing the systems now and we
want to make sure our customers have the
best experience possible,” Fauver said.
“Starting out by working with our partners
to identify any technical issues is the best
way we can achieve this.”
The law says that next year everyone must
buy health care or pay a penalty. In 2014 the
penalty will be $95 or 1 percent of your
income. The penalty will rise in 2015.
2015 every business with more than 50
employees must offer health insurance.
Wyden said one of the most important
advances in the new law is that it ended dis-
crimination against people with an existing
health problem.
For the first few weeks Oregonians can sign up
through a community partner such as the Urban
League, the African American Health Coalition,
Oregon Latino Health Coalition
Small businesses with fewer than 25
employees can use the exchanges to find
affordable care, and to get tax credits that
pay up to 50 percent of the premium.
Employers with fewer than 50 employees
don’t have to provide healthcare. But by
“Probably the biggest ripoff was the dis-
crimination against people with pre-existing
conditions,” Wyden said. “That’s just plain
old immoral to have a countryas good
strong and rich as ours to say it was legal for
an insurance company to beat the stuffing
“They said the mortgage would go up
once a year,” she says. “Our mortgage was
going up every ninety days.”
When Judith called the “Homeowners
HOPE Hotline” phone number for the fed-
eral Department of Housing and Urban
Development listed at the bottom of each
bill, nothing happened.
“It took awhile but I did end up talking to
It’s hard to overstate the federal govern-
ment’s disarray in trying to crack down on
fraud by the corporate sector in the home
mortgage industry.
The National Mortgage Settlement, ham-
mered out this year between the state
attorneys general, HUD and the nation’s
five largest mortgage servicers (JPMorgan
out of you if you had a pre-existing condi-
tion. This law has made that illegal.”
Commissioner Smith said she under-
stands the importance of that change
because she personally has benefited. A
year ago Smith was treated for a brain
tumor, she said.
“I f we did not have this, I would not be able
to change employers and get insurance
because I have a pre-existing condition,”
Wyden said he helped build a provision
into the law will allow states to get a waiv-
er to set up a single payor system by 2017.
“I’m trying to get that sped up, because I
don’t think all the wisdom is in Washington
DC,” he said.
Wyden also said he was committed to
making sure all licensed health profession-
als, including alternative providers, could
be part of the health care system.
Foreclosure
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It Started with Repairs
For the McElderys, it all started several
years ago when they moved back to Port-
land to take care of Judith’s mother, who
had Alzheimer’s. To make ends meet Judith
started caring for children in her mother’s
112-year-old house.
The family home had long been paid off,
but, Judith says, they landed into the home
loan market after a disgruntled ex-family
member complained to the City of Portland
that the building needed repairs.
So the McElderys borrowed money for
the repairs, landing them in the hands of a
chain of home lenders that started with
World Savings and ended with Nationstar.
“I don’t know if World Savings went out
of business or what happened,” Judy says.
“Anyway, our lender started changing, and
it went to two other companies before
Nationstar got it.
“You can’t keep up — all of a sudden you
got a letter from a different company that
says they have your mortgage. And nobody
is telling you anything.”
Somehow the situation worsened no mat-
ter what the McElderys did.
National Mortgage Settlement
‘You can’t keep up — all of a sudden you got a
letter from a different company that says they
have your mortgage. And nobody is telling you
anything’
a person,” she says. “They told me that I
could dispute them and attempt to fight
them but that was all on me.”
By September of 2012, the McElderys
were sliding into bankruptcy and they
stopped paying the mortgage bill.
Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi-
group and Ally Financial) required the
companies to pay a combined total of $25
billion to resolve claims stemming from
illegal foreclosure practices. It also allowed
them to pay $225 million to be released
from added liability under the federal False
Claims Act.
But Wednesday’s mortgage fraud report
from the federal consumer bureau lists three
main areas where corporate practices are
still not living up to state and federal legal
standards:
—Sloppy account transfers, with disor-
ganized and unlabeled paperwork,
including important foreclosure documents;
failures by mortgage servicers to tell con-
sumers when the servicing of the loan is
transferred to another company;
—Poor payment processing;
— Foreclosure processing mistakes,
including inconsistent communications
with borrowers; waiving certain fees and
interest charges for some borrowers but not
others; long application review periods;
incomplete loan files, making it hard for
consumers to find out about their loan mod-
ification applications when they call the
servicer for help.
Lost Payment Cashed Later
In January 2013, Nationstar offered the
McElderys a deal: If they agreed to pay a
reduced amount for three months, they
could stay in their home and modify the
See FRAUD on page 12
August 21, 2013 The Portland Skanner Page 3