Rosemary Williams Evicted from her home

Repost from FightBackNews.org

August 2009

Peoples' occupation to resist the eviction taking place

By Steff Yorek

Minneapolis, MN - Fight Back! News is reporting from the home of Rosemary Williams on the 3100 block of Clinton Ave S. in Minneapolis, MN. Early this afternoon, Hennepin County Sheriff Deputies came to Rosemary’s home and evicted Rosemary, her daughter in law and two of her grandchildren. The deputies carried out the wishes of GMAC mortgage with calculated precision. They allowed the Williams family to collect a few personal items, then changed the locks on the home and padlocked the garage. A family locked away from their life so the GMAC can be the proud owners of another vacant home on a block with 7 other vacant homes.

This eviction is not like the others though. Rosemary Williams has been fighting this eviction from the very beginning and that struggle is continuing. Within one hour of the eviction supporters from the Minnesota Campaign for a People's Bailout, Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign, neighbors and many others from the South Minneapolis Community gathered at Rosemary’s home. The house was reopened in the name of the Williams family. It is currently being occupied by more than 50 people. Many have vowed to remain in the home for as long as it takes for Rosemary to get her home back from the bank.

Linden Gawboy from the Welfare Rights Committee and the MN Coalition for a Peoples Bailout said, "I am here to save Rosemary’s home. GMAC are criminals. You can see that the neighborhood and the community has come together because we are sick of seeing people who have worked all their lives for their homes lose them in the blink of an eye."

The Williams family has been devastated by economic crisis and the greed of GMAC Mortgage. While the banks, including GMAC got bailed out by billions in tax dollars, homeowners like Rosemary have been left at the mercy of greedy banks.

While the greedy banks and the fat cats who run them collect huge salaries, this modest home where Rosemary Williams has raised children, nurtured grandchildren has become a living example of the foreclosure crisis playing out all across the country. It is also a living example of a fight back against this crisis.

Save Rosemary Williams Home!

Support the Occupation!

Image courtesy of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

Video: Despair, revival in Detroit , Part 1

Please check out this two part series from Al Jazeera's Fault Lines program May 14, 2009, Despair, revival in Detroit.

Journalist, Avi Lewis, interviews GM executives along with MWRO Chair, Maureen Taylor, and other local residents, activists, and workers. It's a great overview of the automotive industry collapse where Detroit was once "Ground Zero" of the automotive world.

One portion of the report includes a tour by Maureen Taylor of low-income housing that was torn down to make way for sporting facilities and casinos: "They call it urban renewal, we call it urban removal!"

There are also great interviews with Bobbi Thompson, Grace Lee Boggs, Ralph Nader, and other local and national figures. Check it out!

Wake The Hell Up!!

‘CIPIENTS SPEAK
by Maureen D. Taylor
State Chair, MWRO
May 2009

On Thursday, May 14th, 2009, most Americans woke up to the grim news that in order for Chrysler to save itself, 25% of the current dealers needed to be sacrificed. Some 789 Chrysler dealers were on a list to be closed, some as early as June 9th, after having served the master for decades. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of new families who are now facing unemployment, never mind the many community programs underwritten by these dealerships over the years, never mind the feeder businesses near by who rely on the traffic created by these car dealers - with one swipe of the pen, they will soon be “toast!”

Next comes the dreaded list issued by General Motors who will name the fate of thousands more GM dealerships that must close to save GM. All the while these horrific announcements are being made, a psychotic Wall Street reacts by closing higher, happy at the news that the Big Two are being saved by the sacrifices of millions. Is there not something insidious, sick, and diabolical about these happenings?

Perhaps what is most disturbing is the ease in which millions of car-related workers accept the premise that for America to be better, they must starve, lose healthcare, have homes taken from them, and in other ways stand “mute” while their very lives are being wrecked. The incomes offered to the next generation of workers is woefully lower than what their predecessors earned and will not allow the purchase of these hi-priced cars of the future.

The question is, where are the blue-collar and no-collar visionaries who have the answers to these current economic issues? Welfare Rights firmly believes that the solution to this deepening crisis is not to be found in the direction which we are all being pushed that calls for us to lose everything for the sake of the company. Don’t our lives and the future of our children count? Every response to the growing international crisis is one that suggests that we must bear the pain…closing schools, reduced wages, loss of retirement funds, loss of retiree health coverage, mounting foreclosures, rising domestic violence, rising suicide rates among children and veterans, rising incidents of police brutality…all things connected to rising stress levels. What do we get for our pain?

The time to bring up new ideas is now. The time to suggest a new and different course of action has arrived. The 6.5 million workers who now receive unemployment benefits must soon decide what is to be done when that last check arrives and a job has not been secured. The only answer to this greed-driven, corporate crisis is to engage in building an organized society that rests on certain foundations. People must eat, no matter what. People must have access to clean drinking water, no matter what. People and families must have homes to raise children in, no matter what. Elders deserve respect and a level of comfort, no matter what. We take care of sick people, we educate children so that they can make wise decisions as adults, we care for animals, and we live our days to serve a higher cause that includes kindness and concern.

The time has come to make a choice – “which side are YOU on?” Massa won’t let you live with him, so we must live without him. Wake the hell up!

What Is To Be Done?

‘Cipients Speak!!
By Maureen D. Taylor, State Chair, MWRO

Many cities across the country are experiencing economic declines like Detroit is going through, but we have the distinction of being “first” on many painful lists. We are in the top five in housing foreclosures, in unemployment, in tax foreclosures, in infant mortality rates, in school closures, in dropout rates, etc.

Some things, however, you can’t make up. Highland Park, Michigan, was one of the most beautiful small cities located entirely within the boundaries of Detroit. The trees stretched across the streets to touch each other, providing shade in the summer and giving all residents a panoramic winter view of deep and lasting beauty that all of us enjoyed. Along the edge of Highland Park was one of the Chrysler auto plants that employed 1000’s. It gave both a solid standard of living and a tax base that helped operate the local government.

Chrysler moved to upscale Auburn Hills, Michigan and took that tax base with them. The decline in Highland Park started. The population dwindled from a high of 66,000 residents to less than 16,000 today. Tough times in H.P.

Knowing this history, knowing about the 1000’s of residents who lost their jobs, knowing that water was disconnected because residents couldn’t pay the rising costs, a series of no-vision politicians vied for elected seats until the juice ran out. A disappointing Governor Jennifer Granholm, not allowing H.P. to declare bankruptcy on her watch, instead appointed a financial manager who took the place of an elected body. The first pirate crew was lead by a now defunct Ramona Pearson & Associates who were dismissed after some 20 months. They took more than $1 million dollars out of Highland Park in salaries. No improvements to turn the crisis around during that reign of terror were made except to benefit themselves at the people’s expense. Now we come to this.

Native son Arthur Blackwell shed tears when he was appointed to serve as the next Financial Manager of cash-strapped Highland Park in 2007. He was so touched by this appointment, and declared his love for the city that raised him & his family. The ‘HONOR” was so great, he vowed to work for $1.00 a year. After a series of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were filed, we find that he collected since 2007, $495,000.00. Of course, he has an explanation for this, suggesting that it may only be an accounting error, plus noting that he has written back to the City $66,000 that he may have collected unwittingly. He was fired two days ago, and a 3rd Financial Manager from an upscale community has been appointed. Wonder how this is going to turn out?

Just losing his job is not enough. Blackwell should be the focus of a citizen’s arrest, and taken from his nice home kicking and screaming and off to jail where we decide how long he should stay there after stealing from poor people. Class war continues. Who pays for destroying the lives of working people? No one!

(Image courtesy City of Highland Park)

The Reagan Years Are Back Again In Detroit

Not since 1984, when President Reagan sold us a pile of mess called Trickle Down Economics have we seen such high unemployment rates in Michigan. The state reported unemployment rates of 12% in February 2009. Worse yet, Michigan's largest city, Detroit, reported an unemployment rate of 22.2%--the highest since 1983!

Apparently, these numbers don't even include the men and women who have simply given up looking, or who can only find part-time work. As more and more Michiganders are laid off from auto industry-related jobs, they're competing with low-income families in need of work and who are barely making ends meet.

We find that these families are also competing for jobs with senior citizens who can't afford their medications or high utility bills. Instead of sitting out on their porches or balconies, our elders are standing for hours at a time selling fast food or greeting customers!

And forget about any of our youth trying to get jobs. They have virtually no chance in these terrible economic conditions and will suffer the consequences later, as adults, when they have little or no job experience to show.

During these days of government handouts and bailouts to banks and businesses, the people of Detroit and Michigan need cash bailouts too! We don't need politicians promising tax credits or asking for our patience. Neither will buy groceries or pay the light bill! As citizens and taxpayers, we want and deserve the same assistance that is being given to the corporate welfare cronies across this country!

(Image courtesy Moronail.net)

Bail Out The People — Not The Corporations

(reposted from the People's Tribune, March 2009)

Over the past year, more than 2.2 million homes have been lost to foreclosure, a record number. Some four million jobs have vanished, and jobs continue to be lost at the rate of about 650,000 a month. One American in three has suffered a job loss or a pay cut in their household. Those once stably employed are becoming destitute, and those who were already destitute are dying.

The question on everyone’s lips is, what is our government doing to stop the ongoing economic catastrophe that threatens us all? What should it do? Where do the interests of the people lie?

As this issue of the People’s Tribune goes to press, President Obama has signed an economic stimulus bill which, we’re told, will create or save a few million jobs and expand public assistance to the unemployed, among other things. The government is also pondering how best to bail out the banks, arguing that helping the banks will restart the flow of credit and help get the economy going again. And the administration announced a $75 billion foreclosure-prevention plan that it says could help up to nine million homeowners keep their homes.

We should be on guard. We should ask ourselves, what actually needs to be achieved? The end result of the government’s intervention should be to guarantee the necessities of life for anyone who is doing without them. If this isn’t happening, then we need to demand that the government do what is right.

The underlying cause of the crisis is that more and more production is carried on with less and less labor, because of the introduction of labor-replacing technology into the economy. This technology has wiped out jobs and driven down wages for those still working. Because people with low wages or no jobs buy less, the market for goods and services is being wiped out. As the market has been undermined, the economy was kept going with debt – the massive extension of credit to workers and businesses. Credit was also used to fuel a huge orgy of speculation in stocks, bonds, credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and all sorts of exotic financial instruments that really had no value. On a temporary basis, this speculation brought huge profits to the financial sector.

This house of credit, debt and speculation has been standing on a “real” economy that has been hollowed out by labor-replacing technology. Eventually the debt-based bubble had to burst, and now that it has, the real economy is falling to its true level.
In the short term, what is needed is to nationalize large parts of the economy, such as the banking system, in the interest of the people, not the corporations. We should be nationalizing the assets of the corporations—not their risks—and putting those assets to work in such a way as to guarantee every person has access to housing, health care and the other necessities of life.

In the longer term, we are going to have to decide whether we’ll have a society that serves the majority of the people, or a society organized to serve only the wealthy few. Either the people are going to have to take the corporations over and run them in society’s interest, or the privately owned corporations will decide whether the rest of us live or die. This is the ultimate question we must answer.
(Image courtesy of the People's Tribune)

Homelessness: "America's Youngest Outcasts"

Yesterday's national story reporting that 1 in 50 children in America are homeless raises, again, our concerns about how much the current financial bailout plans will help low-income and poor families. “Children without homes are on the frontline of the nation’s economic crisis. These numbers will grow as home foreclosures continue to rise,” said Ellen L. Bassuk, M.D., president of the National Center on Family Homelessness.

The report concludes that states with the highest number of homeless children are: TX, CA, LA, GA, and FL. When the numbers are examined along with children's health problems, the worst performing states are: TX, GA, AR, NM, and LA. Moreover, one-third of the nation's homeless population are families with children. It's also believed that "the current home foreclosure crisis will be adding a new demographic to these statistics: middle-class blacks and Latinos" who were previously stable until pieces of their life--jobs, health, home--continued to break away.

In this report, Michigan ranks 29th overall among America's Youngest Outcasts for (1) Extent of Child Homelessness, (2) Child Well-being, (3) Risk for Child Homelessness, and (4) State Policy and Planning Efforts. However, it ranks 36th for Risk for Child Homelessness, and 38th for Child Well-Being (with 1 being best, 50 being worst).

In the first half of 2006, the Baseline Data Report on the state of Michigan’s Homeless (pdf) found that 56% of homeless persons in families were children, most under the age of 10. Poverty continues to be the greatest cause of homelessness for families.

President Obama has allocated $1.5 billion in stimulus funds to help with homeless prevention funds. Through state governments, families and individuals will be able to apply for short-term mortgage and rental assistance, including help with security deposits and utilities. This is helpful but it's not enough!

The Michigan economy is the worst in the nation! Homeless individuals and poor families are on the edge of survival. With massive housing foreclosures and evictions, large social service cuts, and no job prospects in Michigan, we must do more as a people to help our most vulnerable members of society. Push your elected officials and business leaders to allocate more funding to low-income and poor people's needs. "Bail out the people, not the banks!"

(Image from National Center of Family Homelessness)

No End in Sight for Working People

Excerpt from Commentary by the editors of Fight Back!, March 2009

...In Minnesota, welfare rights, labor, student and other community groups have formed a People’s Bailout Coalition to make the rich pay and to protect the interests of working people. In California, high schools students have walked out of class to protest budget cuts.

Looking towards the future, we need to reject capitalism and fight for socialism. Is all that we can hope for is a return to what existed before the crisis? A return to a capitalist economy where millions go without health insurance even when the economy is growing? An economy where working peoples’ incomes fall in the long run while the rich get richer? An economy where we have to go up to our necks in debt to make ends meet while always having to worry where the next paycheck is coming from? An economy that is drained by one or more wars thousands of miles away to protect the interests of big oil? An economy where more than forty years after the civil rights act, African American, Latinos and women still earn less than whites and men? We can do better.

Working and oppressed people need a socialist system where political power is in the hands of the working class and the economy serves the people.

So as we fight for our needs and rights today, we should educate and organize for a socialist government and economy that will benefit us, and not Wall Street and big business.

See Fight Back News for the full editorial.

Will Housing Stimulus Funds Help Michigan?

Michigan remains among the top five states with homeowners in foreclosure or late in their mortgage payments. Along with California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, Michigan has had some of the sharpest increases in delinquent loans over the past 90 days.

Many have hoped that President Obama's $275 billion housing stimulus bill would help struggling families but it seems many in Michigan won't qualify for mortgage relief. The funding is too narrowly tailored and many low-income Michigan homeowners have loans outside of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Lenders such as Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and GMAC Financial Services would also have to agree to comply.

The federal government is setting up a new website where (among other things) homeowners can find out if their loans qualify for housing stimulus bill assistance. However, still missing from legislation and all of the surrounding conversations is a concerted effort by government and banks to stop the tidal wave of foreclosures for low-income homeowners.

MWRO calls once again for moratorium on home foreclosures for low-income and working families! They need an opportunity to retain their homes while they work out other arrangements, jobs, and funding sources. Moratoriums can help not only these homeowners but the surrounding communities. The Michigan Moratorium Now Coalition offers Resources for Fighting an Individual Foreclosure.

It's time there was more assistance and effort being made to help struggling families keep what little left that they have. Housing is a human right!

(Image from Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs - Michigan blog)

Moving Towards a People's Recovery Plan

There seems to be a lot of doubt these days from state and local politicians about whether or not to accept federal stimulus funds. Curiously, they didn't seem to have this same doubt when it came to sending more than $1 trillion dollars to Iraq and Afghanistan, or billions more to Wall Street banks. But more to the point, it's not the the job of these "elected officials" to decide whether or not to accept our money, the people's money!

After the loss of 2.6 million jobs in 2008 and an anticipated 2 million more during the first half of this year, the American people are finally in line to receive a small portion of these relief funds. Not only are these federal monies needed to help create jobs in our communities, provide food assistance, rebuild our infrastructure, reduce home foreclosures, and more--they are important because they offer the first direct relief to ordinary people.

President Obama has created a website that helps explain how these funds will be used, recovery.gov

Your Money at Work: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be carried out with full transparency and accountability -- and Recovery.gov is the centerpiece of that effort. In a short video, President Obama describes the site and talks about how you'll be able to track the Recovery Act's progress every step of the way.

These efforts are a good start and offer hope for millions of people. However, it's not enough to help the people on the lowest rung of the ladder. Victims of poverty will never rise "up and out of poverty" without a massive concerted effort by the government and the people.

Share your story about the economic crisis or your thoughts about how Recovery Funds should be used. As welfare rights says, "You get what you are organized to take!"

Dear Pachyderm Friends!

By Maureen D. Taylor, MWRO State Chair

President Obama is correct. We voted you out of office in groves, trying to make it clear that your political point of view was contrary to the direction most of us wanted. I have seen and heard bad things said and done by mean-spirited elected officials, but the fight against helping Native Americans with upgrades on houses standing on reservations astounds even me.

How low-down is a person or group of persons that thought such a move was not critical and primary toward proving jobs and improving the lot of those who had so much stolen from them? The $3 billion recommended could never make-up for the resources taken from them, so I think we should pass that section first and make those dollars available immediately.

Still, President Obama should apply the "trickle up" theory, meaning that he should test in the ten poorest states this concept. Make dollars available to those already receiving unemployment benefits, about $30,000 this year, and $20,000 the following year and watch how quickly we are able to turn this economy around!

We lift all ships if resources are applied first to those at the bottom. Trickle down NEVER works, Mr. President!

(Image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons)