Welcome to the first issue of the Occupy Bernal Newsletter! (let us know if you have a better name)
In This Issue:
The Occupy Bernal General Assembly (GA) met for the first time last Wednesday, December 21. About 60 people attended the meeting at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. Many participants focused on the issue of keeping Bernal residents in our homes by preventing pending foreclosures and evictions of owner-occupied properties and rental-unit properties. The GA set up six workgroups and set a next meeting for 7:00-9:00pm on Wednesday, January 11, in the same location if available. For more information, check out the minutes of the meeting and media coverage from the Huffington Post, the SF Weekly, and Bernalwood.
A great way to get involved in Occupy Bernal is to join one of the six workgroups created by the General Assembly (GA) meeting. Click on the link below to read more about the GA or a workgroup and to subscribe to the email lists that are right for you.
Anyone in support of the Occupy movement is welcome to attend these upcoming Occupy Bernal meetings:
If you don’t see a meeting listed for the workgroup you’re interested in, then join the workgroup email list and help organize a meeting!
Upcoming events are displayed near the top of the right sidebar of the website where you can click on an event to see more information or you can display the full-size calendar.
For this issue, we offer a profile of Occupy Bernal member Thomas German who is facing foreclosure of his home. Thomas German was born in Mobile, Alabama, a bit after New Year’s Day of 1940. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Thomas, aka “Tommie” or “German”, found employment as a die setter at the San Francisco Mint. He rented a home in Bernal in 1967. Living in the neighborhood for some years, he decided to purchase the home he was renting on Andover Street in 1974 for $21,000. How did he end up in foreclosure? You can click here to read the entire profile.
Are you facing eviction or foreclosure? Do you know someone who is facing eviction or foreclosure? Occupy Bernal is here to help owners of owner-occupied properties and renters in rental-unit properties. Please fill out the Add/Edit Property to Map and Listing form so that the Housing and Foreclosure Workgroup can research the situation and keep our Bernal neighbors in our homes. Check out the Map of Bernal Owner-Occupied and Rental-Unit Properties Facing Foreclosure or Eviction that the workgroup is already investigating.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, includes Section 1 of Article 25 which reads as follows:
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
If you are able, please donate any of the following items (you can bring them to a General Assembly meeting or click on “Contact” above to let us know you’d like to arrange to deliver them to us):
We also need donations of the following services:
Cash donations are also accepted to cover photocopying, Internet, venue reservation, and other organizing costs (no salaries or other overhead).
Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/occupybernal.
The Occupy Bernal Twitter feed to follow is @occupybernal.
Thomas German was born in Mobile, Alabama, a bit after New Year’s Day of 1940. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Thomas, aka “Tommie” or “German”, found employment as a die setter at the San Francisco Mint. He rented a home in Bernal in 1967.
Living in the neighborhood for some years, he decided to purchase the home he was renting on Andover Street in 1974 for $21,000. How did he end up in foreclosure? He was facing a personal catastrophe. And he made a generous offer. So he refinanced his home. Although Thomas obtained and held insurance for his home, the insurance didn’t cover bringing the place up to code when a fire gutted the place in 2008. He invested in a family business that later failed and Thomas never recovered those funds.
With the encouragement of loan personnel at Wachovia, Thomas borrowed on the equity everyone thought was in the value of the home. He signed a loan agreement for an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) with a interest rate that increased over time because he thought he could surely repay the loan or refinance at a lower rate.
His only income is a federal pension limiting his Social Security benefits, which are small. On his income, Thomas could no longer afford to make loan payments. By 2008, Thomas’ federal tax return noted home mortgage interest of $25,959 against taxable pension income of $31,3883 – paying the mortgage interest alone represented 81% of his taxable income! He joined the ranks of thousands suffering under predatory Wachovia home loans.
Meanwhile, the very same day Congress passed the bailout plan that would award Wells Fargo a $25 billion dollar bailout from the taxpayers of the U.S. – the largest amount awarded in a single bailout payment – Wells Fargo announced it would reverse its prior decision and buy out Wachovia for $12.7 billion by the end of 2008, thus forming the nation’s second largest bank in terms of deposits. That same week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson issued a document revising the tax code to benefit some banks that buy other banks: a tax break worth up to $25 billion for Wells Fargo.
Unlike Wells Fargo’s bailout success, Thomas applied twice for a loan modification under the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) mandated by the U.S. Treasury as a response to the home mortgage loan crisis. Wachovia/Wells Fargo denied the loan modifications twice, once in June 2010 and again in November 2011.
Nowadays, Thomas is struggling to find a way to stay in his home. He has filed bankruptcy to try to prevent foreclosure and eviction, but the outcome is uncertain. His neighbors here in Bernal have formed a support group to help Thomas stay in the neighborhood. Along with this community group, he is receiving assistance from a nonprofit counseling organization. We are committed to helping him defend his home against any foreclosure auction or eviction.
