Janet

Mr. President, Dump Edward Demarco

Nov 072012

Why Barack Obama didn’t get rid of Edward DeMarco when the guy went rogue remains a bit of a puzzle. The acting director of the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a Bush administration hold-over who got the job when Bush’s actual director resigned.

Under DeMarco’s tenure as temporary head of the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA), he has stubbornly defied Obama administration policy requiring banks to negotiate loan modifications with families facing foreclosure on their underwater mortgages. DeMarco has refused to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both government-supported, cut original mortgage amounts to reduce monthly payments.

Illustration: npa-us.org

DeMarco ignored pressure, including a letter from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and questioning from members of Congress who include the committees that oversee FHFA, to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac use principal reduction to help families keep their homes.

DeMarco’s own agency found that Housing Affordable Modification Program principal reduction alone could help some 500,000 homeowners and save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about $3.6 billion over standard loan modifications.

But DeMarco refused. And in September, he published a 31-page, four-year strategic plan for the Federal Housing Finance Administration.

In refusing to let the two entities use principal reduction, DeMarco in effect put banks before people. His strategic plan aims to make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financially healthy, preserve their assets, and protect investors in those assets.

Their assets basically consist of mostly bundled mortgages they buy from the banks that write them and from the bigger banks that bundle them. In exchange, they issue mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) to pay holders the payments and interest from the mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pay the banks to service the loans that back the MBSs. Banks and investors also trade MBSs.

Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge the banks small guarantee fees, they may have to buy back defaulted loans at full value. So the banks that brought down the economy have no incentive to negotiate agreements that let homeowners pay less and stay in their homes.

The banks fare better if they foreclose mortgages, get all their money back, and leave houses empty. Homeowners who were trying to get banks to renegotiate their loans have suddenly found themselves dealing with Fannie Mae instead.

President Obama can get rid of DeMarco, but not by firing him outright. Since DeMarco is just an acting agency director, Obama can replace him with a permanent director. The appointment requires Senate confirmation, and in party-line decisions, the Democrats have too small a margin to ensure it would go through.

There’s another way: a recess appointment. Obama has used this tactic before. It’s time to force him to use it again to dump DeMarco.

–Janet Braunstein

11/17/2002: Corrected to show 500,000 homeowners instead of 500 million homeowners in fourth paragraph.

An appeal before you vote …

Opinion No Responses »

Oct 292012

by Jane Pennington

If there’s one thing I learned from my career in political and government administration, it’s that change happens more slowly in government than it does anywhere else. Even when the need for change is obvious and monumental, the steps to achieve it are frustratingly, achingly slow. Two years ago, our nation voted for a President who understood this then and who, when elected, spoke to us eloquently about how difficult the challenges would be. From that speech:

“I know you didn’t do this just to win an election, and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

“There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

“What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends … though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too.”

POLITICAL CHANGE IS SLOW.

If you want to see the change you voted for, you must support the President now, not just then. I know it’s easier to lend your energy and support in times of optimism and hope, but it’s more crucial — MOST crucial –to lend your support in times of doubt and increasing indifference. If you want to overcome anything, you must persevere everything, even your own doubts and complacency. Remember where we came from and know that change is slow, and please take time today to vote.

Jane Pennington first posted this on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Its time has come again.

Detroit water workers strike over

News No Responses »

Oct 052012

Satisfied with promises the City of Detroit made to Detroit sewage-plant employees, the union that represents them ended its five-day strike against the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, AFSCME Local 207 said in a news release.

“The courts, the mayor, the Water Board, working in concert, could not defeat this strike,” Local 207 president John Riehl said in the statement.

The tentative agreement with city officials included reinstatement of the 34 fired workers who walked out on Sept. 30, a promise by city officials to discuss the issues the workers struck over, and a promise to reopen their labor contract for renegotiation if the union wins a federal appeal, according to Riehl.

The appeal is on the Oct. 9 docket in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The appeal has three different case numbers that are listed for the same hearing.

The union is appealing rulings in September and November 2011 by federal district court Judge Sean Cox, who also ordered the Oct. 1 temporary injunction against the Local 207 strikers. Cox’s 2011 rulings ordered the City of Detroit to meet 1977 EPA findings under the federal Clean Water Act. Also in November 2011, Cox denied the request of Michigan Council 25 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to intervene in the case. Local 207 is part of AFSCME Council 25.

Cox denied the city’s request to dismiss. But he also ruled that in reorganizing to comply with the EPA findings, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and the city don’t have to observe city ordinances, the city charter, and union and labor contracts.

Shanta Driver, an attorney representing Local 207 in the negotiations with the city, said in the statement that the tentative agreement shows that the people of Detroit can fight off privatization or a takeover by the suburbs surrounding Detroit. The Detroit water department provides water and sewer service to cities and towns within an approximately 1,000-square mile area.

Riehl ‘s statement said Local 207 will continue to negotiate with the city and members will vote on any final contract.

Detroit water workers’ strike in photos, part 2.

Photojournalism 2 Responses »

Oct 032012

With everything on the line, Detroit wastewater workers stayed out on the picket line despite a temporary federal-court injunction ordering them to go back to work. In Michigan, it is illegal for public employees to strike. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department workers are among approximately 950 represented by Local 207 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. About 450 of them work at the sewage treatment plant.

The Detroit water department recently announced it plans to cut 81% percent of workers’ jobs over five years, leaving on the payroll only about 400 of its nearly 2,000 employees. It also said it plans to shave 10% off all workers’ paychecks. The wastewater plant serves 35% of Michigan’s population in Detroit and 76 other towns and cities over about 950 square miles. The city provides fresh water to about 40% of Michigan’s population in Detroit and nearly 130 other towns over nearly 1,000 square miles.

AFSCME Local 207 is part of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, which on Tuesday called for the strikers to go back to work. Still, a headline on the council’s online letter to the strikers described the strike as a “walkout caused by frustrations felt by good people doing dirty, dangerous work without the most basic tools.”

On the third day of the strike, Detroit police parked a bus at an intersection a quarter mile from the strikers’ picket line. According to Local 207, the bus disgorged dozens of tactical police. It was one tactic the city used to get many strikers and other union members to cross the picket line. Photo by Terry Hall

John Riehl, president of AFSCME Local 207, holds up the press release announcing suspension without pay of the 34 strikers who first walked out on Sept. 30. The DWSD chief sent each a certified letter that also said they’ll be fired in a week on Wednesday, Oct. 10. The suspended workers have until Friday to appeal their firings. Photo by Terry Hall

AFSCME Local 207 members inform truck drivers that the strike is still on. Another tactic the city is using to break the strike is a promise that no strikers who cross the line will be disciplined, and that those who didn’t want to cross could use sick days unless they stood in the picket line. Photo by Terry Hall

The Detroit Wastewater Plant is the nation’s largest single-site sewage treatment facility. It opened in 1940. Photo by Terry Hall

Photos: Detroit water workers strike

Photo Galleries 2 Responses »

Oct 012012

Workers at the Detroit system that provides water to most of Southeast Michigan walked out early Sunday, Sept. 30. The board that oversees the water department plans to eliminate 81% of about 2,000 jobs at one of the nation’s largest water and sewer utilities, which serves 40% of Michigan’s population over a 1,000 square miles. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department workers are represented by Local 207, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

AFSCME Local 207 picket line at the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant. Photo by Terry Hall

Detroit provides water and sewage service to nearly 4 million people in Southeast Michigan. Photo by Terry Hall

Striking member of Local 207, American Federation of State, City, and Municipal Employees. Photo by Terry Hall

Final Fannie Mae deal near for Jennifer Britt

News No Responses »

Sep 292012

The details are still being worked out, but government-sponsored financial giant Fannie Mae is close to an agreement with Jennifer Britt that would end her six-year struggle to keep her family’s house.

After a long, hot summer, Britt’s friends and supporters relaxed at a picnic with their families Saturday on Belle Isle. “I’ve been up and down and up so many times,” Britt said, “I had no choice but to be patient.”

A week ago, a coalition of eviction-defense groups working as Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense announced an agreement with Fannie Mae that would let Britt buy her Rosedale Park house from Fannie Mae through an arrangement that involved several organizations. The announcement was premature, but not by much.

Her attorney, Joe McGuire, said negotiations continue, and no arrangements are final until all documents are signed. At Saturday’s picnic, Britt said she hopes to close within days.

Meanwhile, Britt is part of an effort to organize neighborhood groups like Grandmont-Rosedale as Neighbors United Network. She and Miriam Pickens have reached out to 47 groups within Detroit. “It’s Jennifer’s determination that’s driving this,” Pickens said.

The Grandmont-Rosedale Development Corp. supported Jennifer during her eviction defense and has been collecting money to help with any costs she faces in the agreement. GRDC is a 501c3 (exempt from taxes) nonprofit organization focused on saving and improving the two neighborhoods. It renovates abandoned homes, helps people buy them, and encourages neighbors to work together.

The last and longest of many protests in Britt’s case was a month-long vigil at her house, where people stood guard to prevent a truck from entering and unloading a dumpster. Once a dumpster is in place, crews carry out an eviction order by gathering and hastily tossing all of a family’s possessions.

The vigil ended after Fannie Mae agreed to continue negotiations with Britt instead of insisting on an initial offer that would let Britt rent her house for two years and then kick her out.

Jennifer Britt’s support came from many sources along with Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense. Her neighbors joined pickets. Some went door-to-door enlisting every neighbor they could. UAW Local 600 lent its strength. Britt’s late husband was a member. Members of UAW Local 140′s social-justice committee and the associated Metro AFL-CIO group Jobs With Justice contributed people and spread the word throughout the labor movement.

Moratorium NOW! and BAMN also shared duties, as did People Before Banks, which plays a central role in bringing in other participants and keeping people and groups in the coalition up-to-date.

But, Babson said, “We still call ourselves Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense. We see” ODED “as a big tent. We welcome others. We were glad to have a lot of younger folks. It was really inspiring.”

All did plenty of work on many fronts, including highly visible pickets, demonstrations and marches at Flagstar Bank and government offices, relentless phone calls to Fannie Mae, and neighborhood rallies which drew figures including state Rep. Hansen Clarke. Clarke, who lost his seat in the August primary as a result of redistricting, is a longtime supporter of a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.

Pressure from Clarke and Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin helped convince very reluctant Fannie Mae to negotiate with Britt. Britt’s supporters brought her case to the senators’ attention with a rally outside their offices in the McNamara Federal Building.

Britt’s supporters are asking for contributions of any amount. Please make checks payable to Grandmont-Rosedale Development Corp. write “down-payment grant for Jennifer Britt” on the memo line to. Mail to: Friends of Jennifer, P.O. Box 15655, Detroit, MI 48215.

This post will be updated as more information comes in.

–Janet Braunstein

“Detropia” is gritty, raw, poignant

Occupy arts, Opinion, Videography No Responses »

Sep 282012

If there’s one documentary, or for that matter, one film you see in a theater this year, I recommend Detropia.

The documentary is an artfully honest look at the harsh realities of post-industrial Detroit, a place so universally fascinating that the film opened in NYC .

Directed and produced by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Detropia unrolls the devastating consequences of the decline and seemingly sudden collapse of manufacturing in the capital of the U.S. auto industry. Ewing, who was born in Detroit, and Grady spent two years living in and recording people in Detroit.

They chose well in the handful of people whose stories blend into a seamless presentation of Detroit past and present.

It’s not surprising that the audience is pulled in by the president of a dying UAW local and its members, whose lives depict the bitter choices and painful conditions facing the remaining autoworkers left behind.

But there also are unexpectedly familiar contributors, like Detroit video blogger and poet Crystal Starr. Starr’s also a barrista at a coffee shop/performance space well-known to Occupy Detroiters.

For those from or living in Detroit, you’ll see a familiar landscape in an engrossing new way. But fair warning: I’m not talking about a feel-good tour. Detropia is shot in dark, stark style that sets the mood of the entire piece. It includes grainy or somewhat out of focus elements. Like the Detroiters it portrays, the documentary doesn’t pull any punches or dress up the raw truth, and it may bring you to tears.

Ewing and Grady reveal the human damage created by 1% behavior, by greedy corporations that closed factories and left the shells behind. Detropia doesn’t explore the future. It leaves it for us to contemplate, to imagine for ourselves what it will be.

Detropia’s most poignant message is that a city is defined by its people. Without them, only empty, burned-out buildings and hopeless, empty streets remain.

–Terry Hall

Detropia runs through Thursday, Oct. 4, at the Main Art Theater in Royal Oak, three to four showings a day.

American Autumn, an OccuDoc worth watching

Occupy arts, Opinion, Videography 1 Response »

Aug 302012

Tired of the frighteningly superficial noise out there? Here’s “American Autumn,” an enthralling and sometimes heartbreaking documentary about the birth of Occupy Wall Street and the critical issues that drive the Occupy movement today. It’s a blunt and thorough reminder that corporate interests rank far higher than those of the people: foreclosure evictions when there are more empty homes than people who need them; people suffering and dying for lack of health care; bankruptcy law that protects banks by banning debt relief for student loans; fracking for oil and natural gas, which cracks the earth and poisons air and water with methane; and much more.

,A disproportionate militarized police force guarded this week’s national Republican convention in Florida, protecting the choreographed political pageant from non-violent protesters using Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Too many reporters repeated Orwellian lies instead of (easily) debunking them. It’s almost Occupy Wall Street’s first anniversary. The timing is perfect.

Written, produced and directed by OWS activist, documentary maker, and No Cure For That Productions founder Dennis Trainor Jr.

” … we now have a film of our own. This is not amateur hour. This is a movie as well made, in technical terms, as any Hollywood blockbuster with Pentagon funding. But this is a movie with us in it. I don’t mean our little group of activist friends. I mean us, the people of this country, our stories, our hardships, our triumphs, our injustices, our tragedies, our humor. This is radically different from what you’ll see at your local movie theater”. - David Swanson, MichaelMoore.com

Update Dec. 17, 2012: This film also is available at http://www.occudoc.org for whatever you choose to pay for it, starting at $1.

“American Autumn” has been shown at art theaters and selected to appear in at least eight 2012 film festivals: New Filmmakers 2012, New York; Twin Cities Film Fest; Unspoken Human Rights Festival; Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival; Louisville’s International Festival of Film; Orlando Film Festival; Montana Cine International Film Festival; New Hampshire Film Festival.

– Janet Braunstein

Occupy the Midwest in full swing

News 2 Responses »

Aug 252012

There are two reasons Occupy the Midwest chose to hold its second conference in Detroit: despair, and hope.

Detroit is one of the cities hit hardest by the ongoing Great Recession, triggered by the 2007 collapse and bailout of the banking system. Mortgage foreclosures and evictions are still adding empty houses to an alarming stock of abandoned buildings and crumbling neighborhoods.

From Tanzania to This Hood of Ours. Cocoloco Photography

But activist Detroit is also an internationally watched urban laboratory. Its self-sustaining, DIY projects, such as growing fresh food on vacant lots and rebuilding dilapidated houses, work largely outside of government, corporations, and the consumer-based economy.

“We want to show that even in the worst conditions, we can make positive change,” in part by equipping people with the right skills and knowledge, said Occupy Chicago’s David Olorosso, one of the organizers of Occupy the Midwest. The conference geared up on Thursday and runs through Sunday, Aug. 26.

Made up of Occupy groups from a growing list of states including Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Indiana, Occupy the Midwest started as an idea within Occupy St. Louis, which hosted the first conference last spring.

This weekend’s conference is really two running simultaneously, sometimes intersecting. The sessions at Occupy Detroit hub 5900 Activist Center center around government and political strategy. The schedule at the This Hood of Ours encampment is more hands-on, focused on providing basic needs, protecting the environment, and property-use strategies. The conference program presents attendees with some difficult choices.

Here are a few:

Tar Sands — When This Spills, It’s a Whole New Monster: Meet the whistleblower who exposed cover-up of 800,000-gallon oil spill in Kalamazoo River.
Creative Living and City Survival: Blueprints for sustainable communities using natural energy, surviving climate change, gathering wild edibles.
The Role of Banks in the Destruction of Detroit: How the foreclosure crisis created Detroit’s fiscal deficit; Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac’s role in foreclosure crisis.
Reclaiming Abandoned Houses: Necessary steps for reclaiming and securing property confiscated by banks and government agencies.
Another World is Possible: Peoples’ right to choose their own food, farming, livestock and fisheries systems versus international market-force control over most food.

Also looming large: Michigan’s disputed emergency manager law, Public Act 4; (foreclosure) eviction defense; urban farming; new self-government ideas; and the Occupy movement’s first year. The list of participating activist and community organizations is a map of regional cooperation.

Detroit is part of a nationwide race to save as many communities as possible as fast as possible, said Jasahn Larsosa, chief organizer for This Hood of Ours. The Detroit-based organization is a campaign started started three years ago to help reshape local economies from consumer-based to self-sustaining, from valuing money and convenience services to cooperating to provide basic needs. This Hood of Ours also operates in Cleveland and in Anderson, Indiana.

Use the land. Cocoloco Photography

“It never occurs to us that an abandoned home is an asset to a neighborhood, or a vacant lot,” he said. “Use the land, grow your own food. Move into the houses.”

Larsosa said it’s insulting that residents pay taxes for public services they’re not getting, buses that don’t run, trash that’s not collected, neglected schools and parks. Property taxes make up three quarters of the city’s budget; a third of Detroit land space is empty, abandoned, and unused. So when the city confiscates a house for unpaid taxes, he said, leaving it empty and vulnerable, “take it back.”

Detroit’s patchy victories and grim failures make it the perfect host for Occupy the Midwest.

–Janet Braunstein

Jennifer Britt anti-eviction update

News No Responses »

Aug 242012

Taxpayer-owned mortgage institution Fannie Mae agreed Friday to continue negotiating with Jennifer Britt, who is fighting her family’s eviction from their foreclosed home, according to Steve Babson of People Before Banks.

Britt has been struggling to save her home since her husband’s death six years ago.

On Aug. 14, Fannie Mae offered to let Britt lease the house for two years at $785 a month, less than half of what Britt paid before the foreclosure. At the end of the proposed lease, Britt and her family would have to move out of the house, and Fannie Mae would sell it.

On Tuesday, Aug. 21, Britt responded with a counter-offer that would allow her to eventually own the house. Her attorney provided no details.

And on Friday, Aug. 24, Fannie Mae told Britt’s attorney that it will continue to negotiate on her counter-offer. It will conduct a formal walk-through appraisal of the property, according to Babson. The formal appraisal might be a tiny step toward shaping settlement terms that would let her keep the house after the lease.

Britt’s battle was originally with Flagstar Bank, which foreclosed on the house in 2010. When Fannie Mae bought the mortgage from Flagstar, Flagstar recovered most of its money. Fannie Mae refused to negotiate seriously with Britt’s supporters, including the Southwest Housing Solutions non-profit. Southwest Solutions offered to buy the house back from Fannie Mae for its market value: $10,000.

Fannie Mae wanted $100,000; Britt and her late husband had already invested that much. Britt had spent her life savings trying to satisfy Flagstar. Fannie Mae sought and won an eviction order against her in July 2012.

Britt’s many supporters mounted a high-visibility eviction defense. On July 19, neighbors and community activists began a determined vigil on her lawn and street to block any attempt at removing Britt, her family, or her possessions.

After more than three weeks, Fannie Mae bent under the pressure and sent Britt an offer. She remains protected by a coalition of activist and community groups.

–Janet Braunstein

For more on the Jennifer Britt vigil, see Terry Hall’s journal of the weeks leading up to Fannie Mae’s first offer.

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