ACORN Initates Civil Disobedience to Stop Foreclosures

As resistance to foreclosure evictions grows among homeowners, community leaders and some law enforcement officials, a broad civil disobedience campaign is starting in New York and other cities to support families who refuse orders to vacate their homes.

The community organizing group Acorn unveiled the campaign with a spirited rally on Friday at a Brooklyn church and will roll it out in at least 22 other cities in the coming weeks. Through phone trees, Web pages and text-messaging networks, the effort will connect families facing eviction with volunteers who will stand at their side as officers arrive, even if it means risking arrest.

“You want to haul us out to jail? Fine. Let the world see how government has been ineffective,” Bertha Lewis, Acorn’s chief organizer, said in an interview. “Politicians have helped banks, but they haven’t helped families in the way that it’s needed, and these families are now saying, enough is enough.”

At the onset of the foreclosure crisis, the problem was regarded by some as one of a homeowner’s own making, the result of irresponsible decisions made by families who chose to live beyond their means. But as foreclosures spread across the country, devastating even solidly middle-class communities, the blame has slowly shifted to the financial companies that made questionable loans and have received billions of dollars in federal aid to stave off collapse.

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Activists Place Homeless in Vacant Houses

As President Obama is scheduled to announce his $50 billion foreclosure prevention plan today the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is taking matters into its own hands and finding housing for homeless people in foreclosed and vacant homes. .

As people were getting thrown out of their homes across the country, and in the absence of any real government action thus far, some are taking action on the local level. The community organizing group, Acorn, recently unveiled a campaign in at least 22 cities to help homeowners resist foreclosure evictions. Meanwhile, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America is bussing homeowners facing foreclosure to the homes of chief executives of financial institutions to protest outside. Sheriffs in some places have also taken a stand. In Wayne County in Michigan, Sheriff Warren Evans, suspended all evictions starting February 2nd until the federal government implements a plan to help homeowners facing foreclosures. And in Ohio Congressmember Marcy Kaptur, recently speaking on the House floor, encouraged homeowners facing foreclosures to stay in their homes.

Today we go to Minneapolis to look at a similar organizing effort. The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign recently revealed to the media its long-running project to move homeless people into many of the foreclosed and vacant homes on Minneapolis’ North and South Side. They are also seeking a city moratorium on foreclosures, short-sales and evictions.

Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

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PLEASE HELP ACORN STOP THE ATTACKS

 

John McCain's attack on ACORN is shaping up to be the most vicious of the 2008 election. The problem is, we will have to suffer the consequences - to ACORN, to the communities in which we work, to our democracy - long after the election is over. We need your help, and we need it now.

Please take a moment and add your name to our open letter to the McCain campaign, asking him to just stop. It will take millions of people, millions of voices to have an impact and your voice matters. Find out more here.

PLEASE HELP ACORN STOP THE ATTACKS

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Biden Slammed During Florida Interview

Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden gave it to Florida WFTV anchor Barbara West Thursday when she asked him a slew of questions straight out of John McCain's talking points.
West began the interview by asking whether Biden was "embarrassed" by Barack Obama's association with ACORN. Biden refuted the false association between ACORN and Obama and rightly mentioned John McCain's speech during a rally sponsored by ACORN in 2006.
Watch the interview below:


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