Protesters stop foreclosures gather using social media to blockade homes

[StarsInHerHair]

http://consumerist.com/2011/07/protesters-stopping-foreclosures-for-strangers-in-spain.html


NYT reports on how the activists are organizing the protests in front of their fellow neighbors houses, using cellphones, and Facebook, Twitter and other electronic means to get hundreds of people to show up on the day the evictions are supposed to happen. When the officials see the crowds, they usually leave, and it can take a month for them to re-organize to try to evict again. The protesters hope that in the time period the bank can be convinced to rent the houses back to the people living inside at an affordable rate.

Like the US and other parts of the world, Spain underwent a housing boom fueled by debt and mortgages being written to people who should never have gotten them. But unlike the US, Spanish citizens are denied two common ways of getting out. They are not allowed to simply send the keys back to the bank and give up the house and they can't get rid of the debt through bankruptcy. Instead they are personally liable for the full amount of the loan after the foreclosure. Add penalty and interest and a few tens of thousands in court fees, and you've got destitution."....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/world/europe/16spain.html?_r=1


Protesters in Madrid kept the police from foreclosing on the ground-floor apartment of María José del Coto Maeso, an unemployed maid with a disabled son.
By SUZANNE DALEY
Published: July 15, 2011

[sabrina 1]

1. Excellent. The Govt should be stopping these foreclosures

with a moratorium. But Geithner has held up the money allotted to help people stay in their homes, as Elizabeth Warren made clear when she questioned him about why that money had not been used for the purpose it was set aside for. He really was angry with her over that exposure. Probably why she didn't get the job.

I love what these people are doing. Good for them.

[StarsInHerHair]

2. we desperately need this kind of action here too, iys why I posted it

really kinda hurts that so few saw value in it, esp. when we hear almost daily how banks took the wrong house, trashed everything in it, people who never missed a payment, etc