PRESIDENT Obama used his speech last night to advance his massive government plan to help “responsible” homeowners avoid foreclosure. While gently acknowledging that “people bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford,” Obama blasted banks and lenders who “pushed those bad loans anyway.”
What you didn’t hear from Obama’s lips: While I support efforts to keep people in their homes, I condemn the lawless tactics of my old friends at the Association of Community Orga nizations for Reform Now. ACORN’s “civil disobedience” campaign is in full swing across the country – bolstering the Obama housing rights’ agenda with media-friendly tales of foreclosure woes.
But a closer look at ACORN’s sob stories shows that the prototypical foreclosure “victims” don’t deserve an ounce of sympathy – or a cent of our money.
Earlier this week, ACORN activists broke into a foreclosed home in Baltimore. With a mob cheering and camera crew taping, Baltimore ACORN leader Louis Beverly busted a padlock and jimmied the door open at 315 South Ellwood Ave. The home once belonged to restaurant worker Donna Hanks, who assailed her evil bank for raising her mortgage by $300 and leaving her on the street.
What ACORN didn’t tell you: Hanks’ house was sold in June 2008 for $192,000. She bought it in 2001 for $87,000. At some point in the next five years, she refinanced the original home loan for $270,000. Where did all that money go?
The property initially went into foreclosure proceedings in spring 2006. Hanks soon filed for bankruptcy and agreed to a Chapter 13 plan to pay back her bank and other creditors. But she didn’t comply with the legally binding plan. In December 2007, the loan servicer issued a notice of default on nearly $7,000 past due.
While she was reneging on her mortgage IOUs, she managed to rack up a criminal record on charges of theft and second-degree assault. The house was sold seven months ago after two years of court-negotiated attempts to allow Hanks to dig out of her debt hole.
Beverly was charged with burglary for the break-in and released. He is literally a housing thug – having been charged with a separate second-degree assault and property destruction earlier this year.
The Washington Post spotlighted Beverly’s and Hanks’ activism without following up on their criminal records and financial negligence. The paper also shilled for ACORN foreclosure “victim” Veronica Peterson of Columbia, Md., recycling uncritically her claim that she had been tricked into buying a $545,000 home by a broker who inflated her income and misrepresented her assets.
But Edward Ericson Jr., a reporter for the Baltimore City Paper, found that the “victim” – who took out a full mortgage with no down payment on a house she couldn’t afford – looks more like a predatory borrower. Amazingly, Peterson lived in the home more than a year without paying rent or mortgage.
“The online court and land records show that Peterson closed on the house on Nov. 3, 2006, with two loans from Washington Mutual. The main mortgage, for $436,000, had a starting interest rate of 8.5 percent, adjusting in December . . . The second loan, often called a ‘piggyback,’ totaled $109,000 with an interest rate of 11.25 percent . . . Those two payments together would have totaled $3,386.17 per month. That’s before property taxes, upkeep, utilities, etc. Peterson would have to earn at least $50,000 per year just to make her house payments.”
The foreclosure was filed in July 2007. “The balance on the main note then was $435,735.86,” Ericson reported, plus unpaid interest and late fees – suggesting she made at most one payment on the house. “Had she made all of her payments, Peterson would have spent about $64,335 so far. Had she rented a similar place, she would have been charged around $2,500 per month – a total of $47,500 – since January 2007. Instead, she apparently paid nothing.”
Who are the true victims? If only the reporters swallowing their stories were half as diligent about background checks of ACORN thugs as they were with Joe the Plumber.