Vallejo to take action on housing crisis

Wednesday, 22 October 2008 09:48 Malou Liwanag-Aguilar/AJPress

(1 vote, average: 5.00 out of 5)

The City of Vallejo recently adopted Resolution 08-179, to help residents facing foreclosure, in a vote made by the City Council last October 7.

The resolution is the first legislative action on the housing foreclosure crisis done by any city in the state of California and United States and declares “a housing foreclosure crisis in Vallejo, supporting local, state and federal efforts to address the crisis and urging lending institutions and loan servicers to take certain remedial actions.”

A collaborative effort of Greenlining Institute, Mabuhay Alliance and community leaders, the increasing number of foreclosures in Solano County has had a devastating impact not only on families who have lost their homes but also on entire neighborhoods. According to a data supplied by First America, Vallejo ranks first in the number of foreclosures in the whole of Solano County. For Solano County as a whole, there were 2,730 foreclosure filings for the first seven months of 2008, 13 times greater than 2006. In Vallejo for the same period, the number has increased 40 times more compared from 2006.

In a news report in the Times-Herald, Francis Neri of the Mabuhay Alliance said that the notification of Vallejo’s resolution and what alliance members is a “growing public revolt,” was sent to the CEOs of various mortgage holders. This is an effort to gather them in Vallejo for a loan modification event next month. Letters to Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, FDIC chairperson Sheila Bair and others will also be sent out in the coming days, said Neri.

Mabuhay Alliance will hold a foreclosure clinic in Vallejo on November 22, at Solano Community College, to duplicate an event held last October in Ontario, Southern California. Among the banks that participated in Ontario, which the expect to do so again in Vallejo are Bank of America/Countrywide, Washington Mutual (now part of JP Morgan Chase), HSBC, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

Greenlining Institute and Mabuhay Alliance were among those responsible for the $3.5 billion settlement made by Countrywide BofA to almost 400,000 homeowners in the state of California.

For more information on Mabuhay Alliance, Inc., please call (707) 631-8980. (www.asianjournal.com)

(Published October 22, 2008 p.A1 LAMDWK)

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