Tonight! “Black Brown Wealth Matters” at West Medford Community Center

Posted on February 22, 2016 by MAAPL

On Monday, February 22, 2016, MAAPL Coordinator Grace Ross and Bring Our Wealth Home Co-Organizer Zakiya Alake are presenting a program on Black Brown Wealth Matters: The Impact of the Foreclosure Crisis on Communities of Color. This program is presented by the Mystic Valley Branch of the NAACP and is free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome!

Time: Monday, 2/22/2016 at 6:00 pm

Location: West Medford Community Center, 111 Arlington Street, Medford, MA

Communities of color have been targeted by banks using predatory lending. Come and learn more about the foreclosure crisis, its disparate impact on communities of color, and what we can do about it.

Download the flyer for this event ( PDF )

We hope to see you there!

Posted in For Your Information, Take Action! | Tagged , | Leave a comment

MAAPL Holds Volunteer Day This Sunday, 2/7/16

Posted on February 6, 2016 by MAAPL

MAAPL is organizing an administrative work afternoon/evening on Sunday, February 7, 2016 in Worcester, MA. We need help with a variety of tasks related to reaching out to the 70,000 homeowners across Massachusetts who have been foreclosed and those currently facing foreclosure. Everyone is welcome, regardless of your skill set.

Time: 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Place: Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center, 301 Pleasant St., Worcester, MA

Please email us at maaplinfo@yahoo.com or leave a message at 508-630-1686 with your availability during those hours. We primarily need people who can come and work at the Center, but there may be some tasks that can be done off-site if you cannot make it to our location but would still like to help.

Imagine what will happen when thousands of people are working together, reversing the legal outcome of their foreclosure cases, building massive actions on the ground, making sure that almost no one facing foreclosure has to deal with it alone no matter where they’re located in the state. All of this is in within reach with your help.

Please feel free to share this information with your friends and networks. Thank you for your support!

Posted in Take Action! | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Action Alert! Call the AG’s Office on 1/26-27

Posted on January 25, 2016 by MAAPL

MAAPL Members, Friends, and all who care about righting the wrongs of Foreclosure and saving our Constitution…

Please call the Massachusetts Attorney General today: Tuesday, January 26th and Wednesday, January 27th! Your constitutional rights as a voter and a homeowner are on the line.

Remind her that she is the protector of our Constitutional Rights. Maura Healey has ruled against a Voter Referendum to repeal the new state law that curtails our right to sue to regain our illegally foreclosed property. But there are many other constitutional and consumer protection steps she can take.

Ask Maura Healey to fulfill her Constitutional office
and protect our rights now!

  • If you are a voter, your right to revoke this law (we believe) is a constitutional right that she should help us enforce.
  • If you’ve been foreclosed, it was no doubt illegal. Attorney General Healey is the constitutional officer in this state who should be ensuring your constitutional protections to your constitutional right to property. You have a right demand of her to play that role.
  • If you’re a homeowner not in foreclosure, this bill takes away nearly all your protections if anybody tries to take your property illegally through a purported foreclosure (as we know, most of the foreclosures are not even done by the actual bank with the mortgage of the homeowner who they are claiming to foreclose) – so your property rights are also eviscerated by this law. You have a right to call and ask for her protection.

Call Massachusetts Attorney General –
Main Boston Office: (617) 727-2200

If that number is busy, call:

  • New Bedford: (617) 727-2200
  • Springfield: (413) 784-1240
  • Worcester: (508) 792-7600

Use the Phone Script below that best represents you (Voter, Homeowner, Wronged Homeowner):

  • If you have been Foreclosed:
    “Hello, Attorney General Healey,

    “I am an illegally foreclosed homeowner. Please fulfill your constitutional role under Article 10 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Protect my constitutional right to my property. It has been illegally taken away through the new law, Chapter 141. We elected you because you promised to be the state’s chief Consumer Protection Officer.

    “Your office is responsible for the constitutional protection of my vested rights to my own property. Chapter 141 looks to transfer them to the world’s wealthiest industries. Don’t let your office protect their illegal taking of property. Protect the people of Massachusetts instead. Our Constitution trumps any law passed.

    “I ask you to do everything in your power to protect my violated rights. Uphold our constitution. Reverse Chapter 141.

    “Please email me updates on each step you take, here is my email address [your email address]. Thank you.”

  • If you are a current Homeowner:
    “Hello, Attorney General Healey,

    “I am a Massachusetts homeowner and am current on my mortgage. Why have you let my constitutional rights to property be taken away? I call upon you to do everything in your power to remove the new Chapter 141 Massachusetts law.

    “It wipes out my mortgage protections so anyone can take my home. They can claim a right to the mortgage debt on my home without proof. They can foreclose without proof that I was delinquent or in default. They can violate all foreclosure by sale laws. Until Chapter 141, my protection was access to the courts. Now, the banks can violate all these laws and Chapter 141 protects them, not me. If homeowners don’t know about this new law or can’t get into court, we can lose everything.

    “You are the state’s chief Consumer Protection Officer. Please fulfill the Oath of Office you made to me and the people of Massachusetts. Do everything to return us our Constitutional Property Rights.

    “Please email me updates on each step you take, here is my email address [your email address]. Thank you.”

  • If you are a Voter:
    “Hello, Attorney General Healey,

    “I am a Massachusetts voter. I am deeply worried about the constitutionality of the new Chapter 141 law. It strips access to the impartial interpretation of our rights in the courts. It strips away constitutional property rights. It ratifies the illegal taking of property from the people of Massachusetts – to benefit the world’s wealthiest corporations. It strips more than half the wealth from communities of color and women heads of household. This wealth loss will take generations to repair unless we reverse it.

    “Actively represent me as a Voter. This law guts our Constitution. Make certain it is stopped.

    “Please email me updates on each step you take, here is my email address [your email address]. Thank you.”

Separately, you can also file a Consumer Complaint with the Attorney General:
http://www.mass.gov/ago/consumer-resources/consumer-assistance/consumer-complaint.html
The link to the actual form is half-way down the page, in purple.

Thank you for speaking out on behalf of Massachusetts homeowners and against Chapter 141!
When We Fight, We Win!

Other ways you can help…

MAAPL is also looking for volunteers for the following important tasks:

  • Phone-bankers to reach the 70K Mass homeowners who have been “foreclosed”
  • Advocates to learn the legal intake process.
  • Activists statewide to protest and stop illegal foreclosures and evictions and interrupt trespass and illegal break-ins by “post-foreclosure buyers” (be on-call for your area of the state).
  • Cash and in-kind donations to support our efforts to reach the thousands of homeowners impacted by this law. Our Donation button is near the top of this web page, in the sidebar.
  • Help us spread the word about Chapter 141 of the Laws of 2015. Share the link for this Action Alert with your friends, family, contacts and networks!

Please use our Volunteer Form to provide us with your contact information and let us know how you’d like to help, and we will get in touch with you soon.

We’re grateful for your help, in whatever way you can contribute. Thank you for taking action, and for your support…

Together we can overturn this bad law and
Bring Our Wealth Home!

Posted in Take Action! | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Join the MAAPL Info Call to Learn How to Fight Your Foreclosure!

Posted on January 24, 2016 by MAAPL

Fighting foreclosure (past or present)? Don’t know what to do to keep or regain your home? Join our next Info Call to learn how to fight your foreclosure and understand how recent laws and court decisions impact your legal rights!

Our next Info Call is on Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 7:00 pm. Email maaplinfo@yahoo for call instructions.

You can fight back against illegal foreclosure, and MAAPL is here to help!

Posted in Take Action! | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

AG’s Office Rejects Voter Referendum to Overturn Foreclosure Law

Posted on January 20, 2016 by MAAPL

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has turned down a “Ten Voter” petition to put the legislature’s hurriedly passed Chapter 141 of the acts of 2015, “An Act Clearing Titles to Foreclosed Properties,” on the ballot as a voter referendum. Healey will not permit voters to revoke the legislature’s passage of the Financial Industry’s recent law. Practically, this law will deny the majority of state residents’ right to sue to regain their illegally foreclosed homes by sharply reducing the time period during which homeowners can take their case to court.

Download MAAPL’s press release on the Attorney General’s decision ( PDF )

Posted in Current News, Take Action! | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Need YOU to Flyer an MLK Event Near You!

Posted on January 16, 2016 by MAAPL

MAAPL is reaching out to communities of color to let them know about the Bring Our Wealth Home! campaign. You can help us spread the word by handing out the BOWH! brochure at Martin Luther King Day events throughout the weekend and on Monday.

PLEASE help out–we need people to flyer at events in Lynn, Quincy, Cambridge, Greenfield, Fitchburg, Fall River, Boston, Duxbury, Holyoke, and dozens of other communities that need to be covered!

For more information and to sign up to flyer at an event near you, contact us at maaplinfo@yahoo.com

Download the double-sided brochure ( PDF ) and print it out at home or a local copy shop. Let us know if you can’t print the brochure, and we’ll arrange to get you printed copies to hand out.

Thanks For Your Help! When We Fight, We Win!

 

Posted in Take Action! | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Action Alert: MAAPL Press Conference Weds, Dec. 30th at 11 am

Posted on December 29, 2015 by MAAPL

The Mass. Alliance Against Predatory Lending (MAAPL) and Community Partners Announce the Next Phase of State-Wide Campaign to “BRING OUR WEALTH HOME!”

Press Conference Features Homeowners and Community Leaders Speaking Out on Illegal Foreclosures, Targeted Predatory Loans, and the Fight for Justice and the Return of Wealth Illegally Taken from Our Communities.

Location:
Tent City, 130 Dartmouth St., Boston, MA

Date/Time:
Wednesday, December 30th, 2015
Gather at 10:30am – Press Conference at 11am!

Calling for a coming together, the African American community and other allies of color must lead efforts to reverse a massive attack on our community. This attack has been mistakenly identified as harm to individuals who were scammed into signing on to vastly overpriced predatory loans. We now know that black people and other communities of color (and then, women heads of household) were, in fact, targeted knowingly for these predatory loans by financial players across the world.

We believe, trust and know the time is “ripe for us to do right” as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said. We must come together and recognize this is no matter of some few individuals that bought “too much house”, but rather an intentional industry-wide creation of mortgages “that were doomed to fail,” as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has named them. Moreover, we know that these toxic mortgages were purposefully directed to our communities – with the purpose to strip them of equity, create instability and hasten the turnover of property from the long-term black residents to the investors who stood in the wings chortling in anticipation of what was to happen.

A Katrina without water is what happened. We have lost at minimum $12 billion in wealth and an untold disruption to family and community networks. We have been swindled. This is a Land Grab designed to rob us of our wealth, which we built from our labor. This is the newest version of an attack that has been waged against us in one iteration or another for more than four hundred years.

We expect our press conference to be during Kwanzaa – standing in the tradition of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, particularly Kujichagilia, Self-Determination, we call you to join us and fight back. At our press conference, we expect to have some homeowners who were directly targeted and illegally had their homes taken away due to foreclosures, and also have key community leaders to speak to this injustice and our organizing campaign to Bring Our Wealth Home. This is the beginning of what will be a much larger, coordinated community effort to launch and maintain our campaign to call it what it is – an illegal Land Grab – and address the injustice. When we have created the community-wide understanding necessary to support the people who must individually fight back, we will Bring Our Wealth Home that was illegally taken!

– Zakiya Alake, Union of Minority Neighborhoods, Inc. (UMN), liaison to Mass. Alliance Against Predatory Lending

857-251-0680 zakiyarox@gmail.com

WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!

Posted in For Your Information, Take Action! | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

URGENT! Call Now to Stop S.2057!

Posted on November 23, 2015 by MAAPL

We’ve just learned that Senate Bill 2057, the re-numbered S.2015 that we’ve been fighting against, has been voted on and  passed in both House and Senate. It moves now to the Governor to make a decision to sign or veto by 11/29/15!

In the industry’s HUGE rush, we have weakened the bill significantly…

BUT a bill designed to strip hundreds of years of constitutional rights to property must never be implemented! A bill ratifying tens of thousands of illegal foreclosures with false promises of cleared property records, of money damages and of protections for those still in their homes post-foreclosure – NONE of it true… The unprecedented wealth transfer to the very wealthiest, the pillaging of working people, people of color, women must be reversed!

This is NOT the time to let the industry’s lies and abuse of our legislative process, let their bill to protect all the illegal foreclosures and sweep under the carpet the even more pervasive illegalities!

Make 1 call for Justice NOW – as soon as you read this – #1call4justice!

Call Massachusetts Governor Baker at:

Phone: 617.725.4005

888.870.7770 (in state)

OR

413.784.1200
(if we can fill those tapes, leave a message in DC at Phone: 202.624.7713)

AND consider a fax to:
Fax: 617.727.9725

Message:

“Veto Senate 2057 (was S.2015) – 

  • It does not clear titles,
  • It ratifies the illegal taking of property from Massachusetts residents in violation of our constitutional property rights
  • It does NOT guarantee money damages not already available; it does not exempt those still in their homes;

The financial industry says 40,000 with probable illegal foreclosures would have their right to sue for their homes slashed – we say 60,000!

10s of Billions from illegal foreclosures will not be forced to be returned to Massachusetts!

My name is [your name] and I live in [your town]”

Please help spread the word! Pass this message to your friends, family, networks and contacts! Make your first call NOW, then alert your lists… (if you Share this on Facebook or Tweet this post, please use the hashtag #1call4justice).

We’ve stopped this bill before–
there’s still time to stop it again with your help!

 

Posted in Current News, Take Action! | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Foreclosures Up in MA, 61% Increase From Last Year

Posted on November 8, 2015 by MAAPL

The Boston Globe has reported that foreclosure starts in Massachusetts in September, 2015 have increased 61% from the figure reported in the same month last year. According to the Warren Group, a Boston real estate publisher, the rise in foreclosure petitions is due to a backlog of foreclosures that were delayed pending the outcome of court cases and regulatory decisions that affect such cases.

Figures released by RealtyTrac®, the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, confirm this trend. According to the Q3 and September 2015 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, third quarter foreclosure activity increased in 32 states, including Massachusetts, over last year’s rate.

“In states such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, a flood of deferred distress from the last housing crisis is finally spilling over the legislative and legal dams that have held back some foreclosure activity for years. That deferred distress often represents properties with deferred maintenance that will sell at more deeply discounted prices, creating a drag on overall home values.”

RealtyTrac reports that Boston experienced a 51% increase in foreclosure activity in Q3 of 2015 over the same period last year. Ten other large cities around the country experienced increases in foreclosure activity, including St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, New York City, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

Posted in Current News, For Your Information | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

More Opposition, Arguments Against S2015

Posted on October 13, 2015 by MAAPL

UPDATE: MAAPL has updated its S2015 Factsheet ( PDF ) and created a new Factsheet: Who is Harmed/Who is Helped By S2015? ( PDF ). Download both Factsheets to learn more about why S2015 is harmful to Massachusetts homeowners and will not clear title to foreclosed homes!

“Massachusetts Law and Limitation of Actions Challenging Foreclosure” ( PDF ) by Sarah McKee, a legal memo that examines issues related to S2015, specifically those dealing with the practice of foreclosure by entry, is also now available to download.

—–

MAAPL has received the following three letters from experts in the legal and title research fields and from prominent leaders in Massachusetts communities of color raising important arguments against S2015, which is facing a vote in the MA House of Representatives on Wednesday, October 14th.

  • Senate 2015 “Unconstitutional” says National Constitutional Expert ( PDF )
  • Senate 2015 Would Codify Massive Harm to Communities of Color ( PDF )
  • We Cannot Use Senate 2015, Say Title Examiners ( PDF )

The grave concerns raised by these experts and community leaders demonstrate the dangers to Massachusetts homeowners, neighborhoods and communities posed by S2015.

Please join us in opposing this bill–MAAPL’s Call-In Day is today: Tuesday, October 13th! Call or email your State Representative NOW to tell them to vote NO ON S2015!

Posted in For Your Information, Take Action! | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on More Opposition, Arguments Against S2015