New York: ‘Moratorium on foreclosures, evictions now!’

The Bail Out the People Movement’s call for an emergency protest against a June 7 foreclosure auction demanded that “the City of New York, the Grand Hyatt and the Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC) cancel the auction, set up to allow financial predators to profit from throwing people out on the street.”

About 100 activists held a rally and then set up a picket line outside the auction hotel next to the busy Grand Central Station on this Sunday morning.

The protesters demanded a moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions, which affect millions of people in the U.S., especially those who have lost their jobs.

Banks and mortgage firms are foreclosing homes at the rate of 15,000 a day with the help of firms like REDC. The auctions are in direct violation of recent federal policies established to alleviate the housing crisis and provide homeowners with the time and opportunity to renegotiate the onerous loans.

The homes of poor and working people that were on the June 7 auction block have been taken over by the big banks that have collected $12 trillion in government handouts. Meanwhile, there are a growing number of lawsuits being filed by the NAACP and others on behalf of Black homeowners, disproportionately victimized by the racist-driven, high-interest, sub-prime home loans on the part of Wells Fargo bank.