ShareThisEdited JP (cut to 760), hold for DNOriginally Skedded 800With 2.2 million homes at risk of foreclosure next year, a national faith-based movement is organizing to lobby Washington to keep families in their homes.From San Francisco to New York, packed churches kicked off a massive campaign this week sponsored by PICO National Network, an affiliation of 1,000 congregations based in Oakland, Calif. Some 1.2 million homes nationwide have already been lost to foreclosure, and pressure is mounting to help two million other struggling homeowners, PICO leaders say. PICO, which stands for People Improving Communities Through Organizing, calls for a systematic approach to modifying problem mortgages instead of treating them on a case-by-case basis.In California, about 500 congregants and clergy packed into an Antioch church for a spirited town hall meeting to demand more help for people facing foreclosure."Our purpose to stand up for real change," said Raul DeAnda, a church member said. Foreclosed homeowners prayed and gave testimony before the crowd that sounded angry that Congress has failed to pass legislation to help struggling homeowners.Similar events are planned in Missouri, Florida, New York and Massachusetts, to be followed Nov. 17-19 by a meeting in Washington with leaders from Congress, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "In November, hundreds of people will go to Washington, D.C., with one common message: Work with us," said Gloria Cooper, an organizer with a PICO affiliate in San Diego. "We want to keep our families in their homes."The group wants the Treasury Department to require banks that receive bailout money to adopt protocols that would keep more people in their homes, such as lowering interest rates and reducing balances to make payments affordable. The faith-based groups join a growing chorus calling for streamlined modification of troubled mortgages. FDIC Chair Sheila Bair has championed the idea in testimony on Capitol Hill. Bair used such an approach for borrowers of IndyMac Bank after the FDIC took it over last summer. Congressional Democrats now say other banks should follow that example. Despite the groundswell of support, mass loan modifications still face obstacles, including the inability of some borrowers to make payments of any reasonable size, and the fact that most loans have been divided into complex financial instruments owned by many investors."This is the first real gathering of the faith community on this issue, but it also includes community organizations and people affected at the grassroots level," said Adam Kruggel, director of Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, an affiliation of 25 congregations in the San Francisco area. After meetings throughout the county over the past year, his group identified "foreclosure as the most important and urgent issue we needed to work on," he said. "I've heard countless stories of families whose mortgage payments ballooned out of control; they could not contact their lender; they could not renegotiate to stay in their home," Kruggel said. "It is devastating," said Contra Costa (Calif.) County Supervisor Federal Glover. "We have a lot of people that have done well for years that are now finding themselves homeless because they've been foreclosed on. We also see an increasing crime rate and blight in communities."Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, said the growing momentum behind the idea of streamlined loan modifications comes in tandem with the continued growth of foreclosures and their ripple effect. "For more and more people, reality is starting to set in that foreclosures just keep increasing and this is having devastating consequences," he said.Paul Leonard, director of the California office of the Center for Responsible Lending, said the involvement of the faith-based community is "natural and welcome."Besides the FDIC's example at IndyMac, the recent settlement between state attorneys general and Bank of America/Countrywide provides another model for policymakers to consider in crafting better approaches to stemming foreclosures, Leonard said.In that settlement, announced early this month, Bank of America said it would provide up to $8.4 billion in interest rate and principal reductions on as many as 400,000 mortgages nationwide plus more than $200 million in aid for those who have suffered or face foreclosure."The fact that the federal government is investing so much money without an apparent clear focus on the need of preventing foreclosure draws a clearer picture of what is needed for many who are worried about the broader economic consequences of foreclosures as well as the neighborhood and personal tragedies," he said. For more information about the campaign by People Improving Communities Through Organizing, go to www.piconetwork.org or www.ccisco.org.E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid(at)sfchronicle.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Faith-based campaign pressing for foreclosure aid
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