Actions set vs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Minneapolis  — Anti-foreclosure and housing rights activists have called for demonstrations at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regional offices during the week of Sept. 10. Fannie Mae is the Federal National Mortgage Association and Freddie Mac is Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Both are U.S.-government-run and taxpayer-funded agencies that are tossing huge numbers of families out of their homes across the United States.

The call for the regional actions originated at the Occupy Homes national conference of housing rights activists organized by Occupy Homes MN on Aug. 7-8. Minneapolis was chosen for the conference because it is a center of anti-foreclosure and eviction defense work. The gathering was called to strengthen the growing national network of anti-foreclosure fighters and housing rights activists, who all agree that housing is a fundamental human right.

Recently, in a struggle that made national news, the Cruz family and their community supporters in Minneapolis attempted to stop Freddie Mac and PNC Bank from taking the Cruz home. Freddie Mac owns the Cruz loan, while PNC Bank services the loan. The home went into foreclosure after PNC Bank, by its own admission, made an error in processing a mortgage payment and then refused to rectify its own mistake.

Activists and neighbors peacefully defended the Cruz home from repeated assaults by the local sheriff’s SWAT team, and took more than three dozen arrests. At least 14 persons face felony charges! (occupyhomesmn.org)

Activists from coast to coast reported that the federally controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing almost all of the foreclosures and evictions in the country today. Fannie and Freddie are even more difficult to work with than the banksters they are bailing out. The ironic tragedy of taxpayers paying to evict family, neighbors and even themselves is now occurring en masse across the U.S.

Regional demonstrations are being organized in Atlanta and Chicago on Sept. 10, and in Los Angeles and New York on Sept. 12. While each regional action will set its own demands, the overall demands will include a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions and a mortgage principal write-down to actual market values. The actions will also demand the return of foreclosed properties to communities and the moving of people without homes into homes that are without people.

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