Stop Foreclosure: Russo’s Group Begins Initiatives To Stem Tide Of Foreclosures In Oakland

A famous author, G.B. Stern stated thus, “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.”

No doubt, it is a bunch of optimists who always initiate policies that are meant to help others and ward off tensions of any kind. That is why it wouldn’t be wrong to state that despite the growing number of foreclosures in the real estate segment, there were a lot of optimistic efforts from the officials of Oakland and advocacy groups. Together, they proudly announced certain initiatives that were aimed to ward off the unpleasant, eggy mess that has caused such a stink in the real estate industry, namely the mortgage repayment mess.

This recent development has taken most residents in Bay Area by surprise. After all, most of these are homeowners who are completely devastated by the prospect of losing their homes or paying off the fast-rising payments that lenders are demanding or rather, threatening. With such a slump in the real estate markets, only foreclosures seem to be mounting. There didn’t seem to be any ray of hope to alleviate the fears of homeowners till recently.

In this context, the optimists are definitely the officials of Oakland who did the best that they could to put an end to the growing arbitrary and unfair lending practices of lenders. These initiatives would help to curtail the growing money and muscle power of such ruthless lenders who force hundreds of lower-income and minority residents into losing their homes.

In 2001, the anti-predatory lending ordinance was passed in Oakland. Sadly, this ordinance got tossed out by the California Supreme Court in 2005, stating quite clearly that only the state can regulate lenders.

Following Thursday, the Oakland City Attorney John Russo declared the formation of the Oakland Fair Lending Coalition. This, Russo clarified further, would enjoy the support of his office, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center for Responsible Lending, the Oakland NAACP and others.

For helping people understand the foreclosures and slump in real estate, an open hot line would be created by this group in a matter of days. All homeowners or consumers can make their queries directly through the open hot line facility.

This provides a ray of hope for stemming the tide of foreclosures in the real estate segment through similar public education campaigns.

Russo’s office has gone a step further to pressurize the state legislature for measures relating to verification of income, banning of prepayment penalties and much more. One can only hope that for the sake of homeowners, the optimists and their efforts win!

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