Forty homeowners and clergy members traveled across the country on Tuesday to Chicago’s Drake Hotel to welcome and urge the nation’s states’ Attorneys General to stand firm for a strong settlement agreement with the big banks.
While the Attorneys General gathered for their NAAG summer meeting, members of the New Bottom Line brought along “welcome packets” that contained cookies with frosted handcuffs to symbolize that the big banks must be held accountable for their crimes, a tourist map of foreclosed homes in Chicago, and a flyer with homeowner’s demands. In addition, they held a press conference to release “No End in Sight” a new report by New Bottom Line organizational member, National People’s Action detailing foreclosures in Cook County, IL.
New Bottom Line members also met with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who has been spearheading the investigation into massive foreclosure fraud by the country’s leading banks including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase.
Alliance for a Just Society affiliate, Colorado Progressive Coalition was represented by two homeowners from Denver shared their own experience battling with the big banks to save their home and the dire need for a strong settlement. During the meeting, Miller and the other AG’s expressed their commitment to making sure that current processing of foreclosures and loans must change. And the press conference earlier in the day, Madigan committed to full support of principal reductions and restitutions for homeowners.
A strong settlement agreement needs to include principal reductions for millions at risk of foreclosure; criminal penalties for bankers who committed mortgage fraud; restitution for families who lost their homes due to fraud; and strict enforcement of the settlement terms on the banks. Constituents will not settle for remedies that are optional for the banks.