Community joins fight against retired teacher’s foreclosure
Veronica Villafañe | Managing Editor | 1-5-2012 | Bookmark and Share | Print this Page

imageCommunity activists arrived in droves to a small house on W. 60th St in South Los Angeles late on Wednesday afternoon, with the intent of blocking the eviction of 79 year-old retired teacher Faith Parker.

“We’re here for unity and justice for everyone,” said Kwazi Nkrumah, from Occupy the Hood, during the rally held in front of the Parker home.

With a great deal of effort, Faith and her husband bought the small South LA home in 1962. When he died in 1976, Faith worked even harder to keep the home where she raised her three children on her own.

imageFaith and Saundra Parker.
According to daughter Saundra Parker, in 2006, at the height of the real estate bubble, the house worth about $350,000. “My mother refinanced and took out a $150,000 loan to pay for some family medical and legal bills without telling me. When I saw the bill the first time I saw it was an adjustable loan. I called Countrywide right away to change it, but they said it couldn’t be done. So we just stuck with it.”

When the adjustable mortgage became too heavy a load in 2008, the Parkers applied for a loan modification with Countrywide. A year later, they received a notice from Bank of America informing them they were the new mortgage holders.They offered a loan modification. Saundra says a bank representative told her they couldn’t proceed, because the loan was not in arrears. “They told me to stop making the payments, so we would go in arrears and then qualify for the loan modification,” she claims.

imageGreg Akili, running for new 59th Assembly seat, joins demonstrators protesting against the foreclosure.
The Parkers stopped making payments in 2009 and filed the paperwork for the loan modification. In May of 2011 they were denied the modification and the house went into foreclosure.

“Bank of America promised to work with my mother, but they lied,” says Saundra. “It’s called greed and elder abuse.”

Faith, who has lived in the same house for the past 50 years, was overwhelmed with emotion at the outpouring of support.

“Thank you, thank you,” she repeated, as she shook hands and hugged people who came to protest her imminent eviction. “What they’re doing is wrong. We have to let everyone know what they’re doing,” she told one supporter.

“We’re here to occupy this house! The moment the eviction notice is put up, we’re going to come here and camp out to protect this family,” exclaimed foreclosure advocate Carlos Marroquín during the demonstration. Marroquín, a spokesman for Occupy LA, helped organize the protest.

imageCarlos Marroquin, foreclosure advocate, helped organize the rally.
“I know what it’s like to be a victim of foreclosure. My house was illegally foreclosed. It destroyed my marriage and my family. So I take this very personally. When I learned they were going after a 79 year-old woman, I had to get involved,” he says.

Among those who came to support the Parkers was community organizer Greg Akili, who is running for the 59th Assembly District. “I came here today because people like the Parkers who need help, they need someone to stand up for them.”

“We demand a moratorium on all foreclosures,” said attorney Susan Daya Hamwi during the many speeches at the rally. “The banks should be held accountable because they’ve committed fraud.”

Several Occupy LA organizers pointed out that demanding an end to foreclosures was going to be a priority for the movement in 2012.

“The Occupy movement has reignited popular struggle looking for economic democracy,” affirmed Kwazi Nkrumah. “If Martin Luther King were here today, he’d be part of this movement.”
 

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