United Methodists join rally against foreclosures
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The Rev. Dale Shotts speaks at a March 10 rally in Washington
calling on Congress to reform bankruptcy laws. UMNS photos courtesy of
the PICO Network.
A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
March 11, 2009
As a community organizer in Kansas City, the Rev. Dale Shotts has
firsthand experience of the effects of home foreclosures on families
and neighborhoods.
“People are losing their homes because our nation has made a god of
excessive profits, and we have not listened to the voice of real
prophets of many faith traditions,” declared Shotts, who is director of
social justice ministries at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church and a
leader of “Communities Creating Opportunity” in Kansas City.
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Concerned about the state of vacant homes in her neighborhood, Mary Rabon says, “I’m fighting a foreclosure battle myself.”
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Shotts was among the clergy and foreclosure victims riding the
“Recovery Express” bus caravan, which made an eight-city cross-country
tour March 6-10 before joining a rally and prayer service on Capitol
Hill in Washington. The caravan and rally was sponsored by PICO,
a national network of faith-based community organizations working to
revitalize neighborhoods in 150 cities and 17 states.
In order for the new foreclosure guidelines from the Obama
administration to work, Congress must pass bankruptcy reform, according
to PICO. The organization wants Congress to change the bankruptcy code
to allow homeowners – especially the victims of predatory lending --
the right to ask a bankruptcy judge to modify their loans if their
banks refuse to work with them.
Saving family homes
The caravan started its journey from Antioch, Calif., continuing to
Aurora/Denver and Kansas City. Shotts, who joined a 45-passenger bus in
Kansas City, said the riders sang, prayed and read Scriptures between
stops in Springfield, Ill., Chicago, Flint, Mich., and Camden, N.J., on the way to Washington.
“This express bus was stopping in the cities that have the most
foreclosures in the nation,” he explained. Flint, for example, is still
recovering from the last housing crisis 20 years ago, he said.
“Our message was that we want to keep families in their homes,”
Shotts added. Bankruptcy judges must have the ability to modify
people’s mortgages “so they have a hearing, instead of being notified
just a few days before being evicted,” he said.
Pointing to the harm that the foreclosure crisis is having upon
children, he called mortgage modification and reform “a just value, a
moral value, a human right and a family value.”
The Rev. Cory Sparks, pastor of Faith Community United Methodist
Church in Youngsville, La., who came to Washington to participate in
the March 10 rally, pointed out that the strength of the nation rests
on the strength of its families.
Passage of Senate bill 61 “could save 800,000 homes, according to a
recent PICO study,” Sparks said. “These foreclosures rip apart
neighborhoods.”
Mary Rabon, a member of St. James United Methodist Church who lives
in the southeast part of Kansas City, sees plenty of empty houses in
her neighborhood. “Right next door to me is a foreclosed property
that’s been sitting empty since about September,” she said.
The house was dismantled, piece by piece, and became the site of
illegal trash dumping, but it took a press conference and the help of a
city council member to get the trash removed. “It’s just getting worse
and worse,” added Rabon, who is a neighborhood leader with Communities
Creating Opportunity. “It’s really scary because these (vacant) houses
are dark. You don’t know who is in there.”
A personal battle
For Rabon, the results of the mortgage crisis have become even more
personal. “I’m fighting a foreclosure battle myself,” she said. “I know
a lot of people who are.”
PICO and CCO made it possible for her to travel to the Washington
rally and tell her story, and she hoped the 300-odd people who
assembled there would have an impact. “We know that we’re bringing the
truth to Washington,” she declared. “We’re asking them (Congress) to
act on that.”
Sparks, who has been involved with PICO on a national level since
2005, said the organization has a strong track record. “After Katrina,
when we didn’t know where money would come from to rebuild the city of
New Orleans, the PICO network stepped up,” he said. “Unfortunately, the
voices of our communities aren’t often heard in the halls of power. The
faith voice, in particular, brings a strong presence.”
The PICO National Network is a coalition of 1,000 congregations. To learn more about its foreclosure campaign, visit http://www.piconetwork.org/keepfamiliesinhomes.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
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