MAAPL – The Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending

Fall Brown Bag Discussion: “Racism – Engine of the Foreclosure Crisis”
Wednesday, December 7, 2016 from Noon – 1:30 pm
Community Change, Inc. office
14 Beacon Street, Fourth floor, Boston, MA

What would be different if people had equal rights to own property?

Grace Ross, Coordinator of the Mass Alliance Against Predatory Lending will present at our brown bag lunch. She has had the honor of being the staff person for the statewide coalition coordinating the movement to stop and reverse predatory lending and subprime foreclosures in Mass. MAAPL is the only statewide coalition in the country consistently led by those who have been fighting a foreclosure. Their work is informed not only by statistics, but by real experience on the ground.

The present foreclosure crisis in its worst years has seen foreclosures rise to more than 3 times the rate during the Great Depression. People of color (and women heads of household) were the first and worst harmed by predatory lending and the corresponding foreclosures.

Grace Ross will lead us through a conversation about the historic progression towards democratization of the ownership of property, how that progression continues to be blocked for communities of color, and whether we can move beyond racist assumptions about who should have full rights to own their property and the necessity of doing that to stop the largest wealth transfer since before the Great Depression being accomplished through foreclosures and mortgages.

To register, contact myrna@communitychangeinc.org

We have 30 days to reach as many of the 70,000+ folks who were foreclosed in the last 20 years up to 2014, who must file something at the Registry of Deeds by December 31, 2016.

The 120 violations of mortgage and foreclosure law that have been documented means that almost every single one of these foreclosures can be shown to be illegal. But these thousands of foreclosed homeowners will lose their chance to challenge their foreclosure in court unless we can contact them and make sure they know about their rights!

Please join us for a phone banking session THIS Sunday, December 4th!
5:30 pm training, followed by calling until 9:00 pm (or as long as you can!)

We can do the training by Skype OR at our physical location:
WAFT/Pleasant St. Neighborhood Network Center, 301 Pleasant St., Worcester, MA.

RSVP by email at maaplinfo@yahoo.com, or just join us!

For hundreds of years, people have had 20 years to reverse an illegal foreclosure. The financial industry, especially the title industry, wants to end the 20 year period. For people who foreclosed more than three years ago, the industry got a law passed saying they must file something (including a court filing if they have one) at their county Registry of Deeds in order to keep their right to challenge their foreclosure.

We can get our hands on literally thousands of phone numbers of foreclosed homeowners who must act soon to protect their rights, and we need YOU to help us call all of them.

For electoral campaigns, hundreds of thousands of calls go out in a matter of weeks. We can and must do this outreach!

Remember that foreclosures have been running at three times worse than the rate of foreclosures in the Great Depression. Tens of billions of dollars of households’ wealth (and stability and health, etc.) have been taken by the banks.

If the December 31, 2016 deadline is allowed to pass without people protecting their rights by filing in the Registry of Deeds, that money—that well-being and stability of our families, neighborhoods and communities—may be irretrievable.  This is a largest wealth grab, especially from communities of color/female heads of household, that has happened since the end of slavery.

Please join the community of volunteers that will not only preserve our hundred years old rights, but begin the process of reversing these illegalities and turning the tide on the wealthiest, most lawless elements of our society.