Phone Banking: Occupy Bernal negotiates on behalf of homeowners

We are phone banking on Wednesday. July 18, from 6-9 p.m. at ACCE, 1717 17th Street in order to identify more homeowners who have loans with Wells Fargo who would like to participate in the negotiations Wells Fargo is having with Occupy Bernal, Occupy Noe and ACCE.

Please come and help out. There will be a limited amount of Pizza and salad.
Please let Deborah G. know if you’ll come. (415) 550 1030

Below is the letter we are using to reach homeowners with Wells Fargo loans.

If you are a homeowner with a Wells Fargo loan and want to be part of the negotiations, please read the letter below for the qualifying information you’ll need to have, then contact  us to see if it will be possible to be included in this round of negotiations.  Please see the letter below for the appropriate contact information.


July 2012 WELLS FARGO will negotiate with homeowners

Dear Neighbor and Homeowner,

After more than six months of struggle: emails, phone calls, requests for modifications, protests at the auction of our neighbors’ homes, a unanimous resolutions from the San Francisco Board of supervisors and most recently, the passage of the HOME OWNERS BILL OF RIGHTS by the California Legislature, WELLS FARGO has entered a negotiation process with representatives of Occupy Bernal, ACCE and Occupy Noe.

We now have the opportunity to represent more Wells Fargo loan holders. This process allows Occupy Bernal and ACCE negotiators to advocate for your home, and makes a fair settlement of your situation more likely. Please join your neighbors in waging a unified and well planned struggle to achieve homeowner justice.

To be part of these negotiations—and any potential settlement– Wells Fargo demands and Occupy Bernal and/or ACCE agrees to deliver:

  1. PROPERTY IDENTIFICATION: Name, address, phone number, loan number and email.
  2. FINANCIAL PACKAGE—Complete and up-do-date. Please check with OB or Ed Donaldson for completeness.
  3. SIGNED 3rd PARTY AUTHORIZATION, specifically naming any SF ACCE, Occupy Bernal or Occupy Noe negotiators.

If you have a Wells Fargo loan, this is an overdue and important opportunity to get real satisfaction. And be assured: no modifications, or other payments will be finalized without your full knowledge and consent.

To join this negotiation process, call or email:

  • Buck B. (415) 385-0389 BuckB@devinegong.com
  • Deborah G. (415) 550-1030 dgerson646@gmail.com

How We Work with Foreclosees

Download a Word format of this document

6/13/12

BECOMING A FORECLOSURE FIGHTER
WITH SF ACCE AND/OR OCCUPY BERNAL

GETTING ASSISTANCE BEATING FORECLOSURE, PROPERTY AUCTION, AND
EVICTION

WINNING AN AFFORDABLE LOAN MODIFIICATION

Here’s what we tend to do to help someone in foreclosure – but is still short of property auction or post-auction eviction – who might become foreclosure fighter, if they’re loan is with Wells Fargo. If they are with another bank, SF ACCE may also have the ability to also help them engage in direct negotiations with someone with power at their lender – B of A, Chase, Aurora, for example. SF ACCE has also helped people fight evictions, and reclaim their homes after an eviction. But those fights are not discussed in this memo.

A. Help them get hooked up with a nonprofit HUD-certified counselor, who can:

1) submit their loan modification request, once the counselor has a 3 rd party
authorization, and some financial info;

2) engage in conversation with the lender to help them get a modification;

3) help them figure out if they have the income to qualify to a loan modification with their current income; need to increase his income, or need a principal reduction to modify; and

4) help them get their auction date postponed, find out if it actually is postponed, and until when.

I have attached my roster which has the contact names and info at the two nonprofit counselors we use – MEDA and SFHDC – as well as some other useful folks. MEDA recently told Grace that they are no longer accepting clients, but Ed Donaldson at SFHDC available. MEDA has bilingual staff.

B. Help them into “escalated” review under the WF CEO’s office. Up until now, that has virtually guaranteed that WF will postpone their auctions date/s until the end of that review, although we often don’t find out that one has been postponed until the day before or even the morning of. Getting them connected with Pelosi’s Office and her staffer Alex Lazar should do get them into this escalated process, as well as get him a single point of staff contact in the CEO’s office. This assistance also requires a 3rd party authorization form, for Pelosi’s Office and becoming a counseling client.

C. Help them get onto the Mayor’s Office/staffer Jeff Buckley’s list of cases which he is pursuing individually with the lenders. This assistance also requires a 3rd party authorization form for the Mayor’s Office, and becoming a counseling client.

I have attached 3rd party authorization forms for SFHDC, Pelosi and the Mayor. This form authorizes a 3rd party to engage in conversation with the lender about his modification request, and their case in general. Someone who receives 3 rd party authorization has no power to make decisions on a loan modification request. The foreclosee reserves that right entirely for themselves.

D. Help them get into an ongoing conversation with that single point of contact at Wells Fargo.

E. If and when they receive a trustee’s notice of property auction, in addition to helping them get it postponed and/or blocking it, we need to help them track when it is scheduled to occur.

A lender carries out a property auction through a trustee. The trustee is required to make only a single public notice, with the SF Recorder/Assessor’s Office, of an auction date – the first date when they can carry out an auction. They are not required to report any subsequent changes in that date. OB and SF ACCE have paid for access to a data base that purports to report rescheduled auctions, but sometimes it is faulty and/or takes a few days to report the new date. Even a verbal statement by a lender’s staff person that they have postponed the auction date is sometimes not accurate. The best way that we have found to track an auction date is through the phone number and/or website contained in the trustees notice of the initial auction date.

F. Finally, how do you see if the foreclosee will become/help a person become a foreclosure fighter?

Becoming a foreclosure fighter helps a person: 1) save their own home in foreclosure, AND 2) win reforms and ideally permanent structural changes in the current predatory, unfair and largely racist foreclosure system. We aren’t counselors. We are leaders in fighting organizations. With our current power, we can’t help everyone who is in foreclosure. We can help individual foreclosees, if they fight. We can only win the complete restructuring of the foreclosure system by organizing and building the power to win on individual cases, and reforms of the foreclosure system – like a moratorium, or the postponement of auctions or evictions, or the reoccupation of homes form which folks have been evicted. It is only by fighting with power that we can change the entire foreclosure system into one that is fair, just and non-discriminatory.

We can only win if the people in foreclosure step up and fight for themselves, and other people in the same fix that they are in. We must help them become leaders in the fight. And it is only by them become the face and voice of the fight to end the foreclosure crisis that the lenders, the public, and potential allies like the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor will ever understand who is being hurt by foreclosure, and what it is doing to our communities.

So, sadly, we must pick and choose with whom we will work. We will work with them if they fight, and become active members in and leaders of our organizations. In developing foreclosees into foreclosure fighters, we are not hurting their ability to win their individual cases. Only 13% of the foreclosees who work with an SF HUD certified nonprofit counselor “escape” foreclosure by attaining a loan modification or some other settlement. The counselors tell foreclosees that they will increases their chances of winning if they: 1) fight back, and 2) join an organization like Occupy Bernal and SF ACCE. Lenders pay at least some attention to foreclosure fighters because they want them – and their organizations – to go away! As you can see, the small changes we have won, and the process above, has helped individual foreclosees help themselves.

SF ACCE has helped foreclosure fighters win loan modifications, even for ones that lenders have evicted from their homes. OB has helped foreclosure fighters win modifications, but so far only for people who had the income to qualify anyway.

We must test the folks that we try to help. Tell them straight up that we can’t “save” them, but we will help them fight back. And that we want them to become foreclosure fighters. Tell them what we mean by that term. Give them opportunities to do so. Invite them to the next meeting of our organizations. Ask and train them to speak to their neighbors; the media; elected officials; and representatives of the lenders. Give them the opportunity to participate in the planning of actions against the lenders, and active roles in those actions.

Attachments: Buck’s roster; 3rd party authorization forms for SFHDC, Mayor and
Pelosi’s Offices.

By Buck Bagot – 415/385-0389 OR BUCKB@DEVINEGONG.COM.

For more information, go to www.occupybernal.org, www.calorganize.org, or
www.occupytheauctions.org.

Protest the Wells Fargo Shareholders’ Meeting

There is a planning meeting for Occupy Bernal in preparation for this action. The planning meeting will occur on Thurs. April 19 at 7 p.m at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center.

We’ll be be taking our demands directly to John Stumpf as part of a broad coalition of community, faith, labor, immigrant rights and movement organizations that is going to the Wells Fargo shareholders meeting on April 24, to fight for justice for homeowners and our communties.

Be a part of the 99% takeover. Join us on April 24th and tell John Stumpf that enough is enough!

We are just ONE WEEK away from the 99% Takeover of Wells Fargo’s annual Shareholder’s meeting!!! Thanks to the hard work and commitment of so many folks we have a very solid plan shaping up that will likely shake up the Bank that is breaking up communities, families and people’s future!

Meeting Reminder

The final coalition planning meeting will be this Thursday, 4/19 from 5:30-7:30 @ Local 87’s office, 240 Golden Gate in SF just a few minutes from the Civic Center BART stop.

Note: Occupy Bernal is having an organizing meeting for the OB contingent this same night, at 7pm at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center

Action/Training Updates

4/21
Occupy SF will be hosting one of the final Direct Action trainings for participating in non-violent direct action that will cover: risking arrest, role-playing actions, legal consequences and details of the April 24th action on Saturday April 21, 10am to 1pm in San Francisco. This will be followed by a mandatory training from 2:30-4:30pm for anyone who is committed to participating in non-violent direct action on the outside takeover. To attend please respond to this email for the location.
4/23
The inside action planning team will be holding a final training and meeting from 3-6pm for all of the fighters planning to be inside the meeting on the 24th in the event the meeting is not shut down. This training is for folks with proxies and share only and for more information, please email Marguerite Young. Marguerite.young@seiu.org.
Later in the day
Occupy SF will be holding a “pop up” occupation and teach in starting @ 5pm in front of Wells Fargo’s corporate HQ on Montgomery & California St. in downtown SF. There will be another non-violent, direct action training as part of that event for folks who have to miss the training on Saturday. (Bring warm clothes!)

Legal Information

For folks participating in Non-violent Direct Action: please read this legal information from Occupy Legal if you are willing to participate in non-violent direct action

Websites and Social Media

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Committee to Hear Foreclosure Moratorium

OCCUPY BERNAL AND OCCUPY SF HOUSING MEDIA ADVISORY

Contact: Christie Hakim, +1 (415) 285-6899, press@occupybernal.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Occupy Bernal, ACCE, and Occupy SF Housing Support Board of Supervisors’ First in the Nation Major City Resolution on Unlawful Foreclosures and Moratorium on Foreclosures and Evictions to be heard in committee April 2, 2012

San Francisco, April 2, 2012 – Occupy Bernal, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), and the Occupy SF Housing Coalition will speak out at the Land Use and Economic Development Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in support of resolutions calling for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions in San Francisco, demanding an immediate moratorium on predatory bank evictions, fraudulent foreclosures, and foreclosure auctions by all city officials.

The organizations plan a rally on the Polk Street steps of City Hall at 1:30pm. Speakers at the rally include: San Francisco Supervisors John Avalos and David Campos, Occupy Bernal Foreclosure and Eviction Fighter Ross Rhodes and ACCE Foreclosure and Eviction Fighter Vivian Richardson.

After the rally, speakers and other moratorium supporters will attend the Committee meeting at City Hall to present testimony.

Members of several City Departments, including the Assessor-Recorder’s office and the Mayor’s office, will present testimony. A representative from State Attorney General Kamala Harris’s office is expected to attend to address her proposed foreclosure and eviction moratorium and Homeowners’ Bill of Rights currently pending in Sacramento. In addition, counselors who have been working with San Franciscans facing foreclosure and eviction will speak about remedies that will address proposed remedies to the problems their clients face. ACCE and Occupy organizers including FEFs will speak out about the problems they have faced in their attempts to save their homes from foreclosure by Wells Fargo Bank.

Occupy Bernal, ACCE, and the Occupy SF Housing coalition invite the press to hear from San Francisco residents as well as from officials of the City and County of San Francisco.

The recent deal between banks and the Attorneys General of 49 of 50 states is woefully inadequate and does little for the Californians hardest hit by the crisis era or earlier.

“We are fast losing residents from our communities – seniors, families, community leaders, city workers,” said ACCE Foreclosure Fighter Archbishop Franzo King. “The city must do all in its power to pause foreclosures and cease partnering with predatory banks so we can all hold the banks accountable for their crimes.”

“The banks have torn apart our communities and caused a financial and health crisis by unjustly foreclosing and evicting our neighbors from their homes,” commented Occupy Bernal organizer Christie Hakim. “We support those city officials who have joined with the state Attorney General in calling for an immediate halt to predatory and for-profit foreclosures and related auctions and evictions.”

An audit commissioned by San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting on nearly 400 San Francisco foreclosures over the past three years reveals that “fully 84 percent of the foreclosure files contained at least one clear legal violation and more than 66 percent of the files contained multiple violations”. This report confirms what many have suspected and provides the evidence required for issuing a moratorium on all predatory or for-profit evictions, foreclosures, and foreclosure auctions.

Both Occupy Bernal and ACCE have recently held successful protests that occupied the home of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf on February 25, 2012, protested in front of Board of Directors member Lloyd Dean’s Dignity Health office on March 14, 2012, and shut down Wells Fargo headquarters on January 20, 2012 and Wells Fargo bank branches in the Bernal and Excelsior neighborhoods on January 5 and January 7 respectively.

To sign up for the Occupy Bernal press list and/or obtain photos and video of the actions, see http://www.occupybernal.org/press.

Organizations and Campaigns:

Occupy Bernal is a neighborhood-based Occupy currently focusing on preventing the banks from throwing our neighbors out of their homes. Web: http://www.occupybernal.org

Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is raising up the voices of low income, immigrant and working families across California. Web: http://www.calorganize.org

Occupy SF Housing is a coalition which includes OccupySF, SF Tenants Union, Housing Rights Committee of SF, Causa Justa :: Just Cause, Eviction Defense Collaborative, ACCE, Homes Not Jails, Occupy Bernal, and other community groups and individuals. The coalition came together to stop banks from evicting tenants and homeowners through foreclosures or through their partnerships with real estate speculators. Web: http://www.occupysfhousing.org

Occupy the Auctions/Evictions is a campaign to halt for-profit and predatory evictions, foreclosures, and foreclosure auctions in San Francisco and beyond. Web: http://www.occupytheauctions.org and http://www.occupyevictions.org

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