They talked and National City listened. But it took a lot more than speaking to get the bank’s attention. About 20 people whose homes are either in or bordering foreclosure carried signs reading “National Shame” and chanted “Predatory lenders, criminal offenders” July 29 in front of the National City Bank on Lee Vista Boulevard.
Similar rallies took place that day at more than a dozen other National City locations nationwide. With weekly rallies, ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — pressures banks and organizations that approved faulty loans. It was the third day of actions nationwide against National City and it finally paid off, group officials said.
Although last week was a win for help one member, Edna Santiago, nearly in foreclosure on her National City mortgage. Santiago, a 56-year-old National Guard veteran, stopped working six years ago because of crippling headaches caused by a brain tumor.
Her husband left her a few months ago, leaving her with a mortgage payment that her salary — comprised of Social Security and Veterans Association payments — could not cover. She is now four months behind. “I want to stay in my home. I have been writing [the bank] letters for four months but I get no answer,” the East Orlando resident said. “I feel so helpless.” Last week was her first rally with ACORN.
“It might be too late for this to help me but I just hope someone else might be helped by this,” she said through tears. National City spokesman Todd Morgano said the bank offers a fee hardship assistance program with foreclosure intervention and resolution opportunities. “We encourage our borrowers to contact us at the first sign of trouble, and also generally proactively reach out to those who are running late on their payments if we haven’t already heard from them,” he said.
National City is the seventh largest retail and fourteenth largest wholesale mortgage lender in the United States. King said there are only a handful of companies that have refused to meet with ACORN. Until last week, National City was the largest of them. ACORN members, clad in red logo shirts and ponchos, marched up to the National City entrance and, once inside, politely asked a supervisor to fax their demands to the corporate office. The supervisor refused to do so and called the police.
“We do not generally allow people who are not conducting National City business to access or use our equipment,” Morgano said. “Also, we do have copies of the letter the group wanted to fax to us, so the information is in our hands.” The members, called ACORN’s Foreclosure Fighters, left the lobby and marched to the sidewalk in front of the bank facing the street carrying signs and chanting their version of rapper DMX’s song Party Up (In Here), “You’ll gonna make me lose my home, up in here, up in here.”
Police responded to the rally and watched the group closely, making sure they did not step from the sidewalk onto National City property. “In 38 years we have never been arrested but we get the cops called on us all the time,” said ACORN spokeswoman Meredith Adrion. “We find the power that exists in numbers is how to seek real change.”
Next, ACORN will aggressively target First Franklin Financial, Aurora Bank and Yale Mortgage Corporation — the top three companies ACORN is having trouble negotiating with. ACORN’s first “best practices agreement” with a lending institution was recently announced — with Countrywide Financial.
The group expects to unveil even more agreements — with HSBC Bank, Citigroup, Washington Mutual, and GMAC Financial Services. There are plenty of companies ACORN is still in discussions with, including Ocwen Financial Corp., JPMorgan Chase and Wilshire Associates. “While it wasn’t a perfect agreement, we are pleased to see that Countrywide’s modification activity has gone up exponentially in recent months, at least in part because of our agreement with them,” said Austin King, director of the ACORN Financial Justice Center.
The last several months have proved to be the most positive during the twoyear mortgage crisis, King said, but that progress has still been “too slow, not uniform, and not at all equal to the enormity of the foreclosure crisis we face.” Florida’s foreclosure rate fluctuates within the top 10 in the nation with one in every 227 homes — or 37,506 units — in foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac.com. Carolyn Patman became one of them in May.
The 59-year-old retired Orlando woman had her home paid off for years but since her children were grown and moved away, she decided to borrow money to build a sunroof. The bank told her she would have a fixed rate, but neglected to mention its one-year fixed term. Patman did not read the fine print. “I come from an era where a fixed mortgage means 30 years. You depend on the professionals to do the right thing.
They are so nice when you are signing the paperwork that you do not even know you are in predatory lending,” she said. “Once you find out you feel like a fool.” Patman is now head of the Foreclosure Fighters. “National City’s slogan is ‘We care about doing what’s right,’” she added. “So we expect them to do the right thing.”
