Protestors with Occupy Our Homes ATL conducted a press conference Monday at the foreclosed home where Steve Boudreaux and two housemates live, promising to help keep an eye on the house in case anyone tries to repossess it.
The home occupation was the first one of its kind in Cobb, but Occupy organizer Tim Franzen said it won’t be the last.
“What we’re seeing in Cobb County is that these neighborhoods are just starting to get where some of the harder hit areas of Atlanta are,” Franzen said. “Steve is the first to really step up, and we’re looking for others to do the same thing.”
Boudreaux, 56, said he bought the house on Rubes Landing five years ago and fell behind his payments with Wells Fargo Bank last year when he lost his job and his girlfriend, whom he shared house payments with, moved out.
Boudreaux said the bank began foreclosure proceedings when he fell 90 days behind in his payments. Now working at a job in building restoration, Boudreaux said he’d worked out an emergency loan modification with Wells Fargo, but that fell through when tax transcripts from the IRS arrived late, and the bank went ahead with trying to sell the house at the June 5 foreclosure sale. But Boudreaux called Franzen a day earlier, and Occupy protesters showed up on the Courthouse steps in Marietta with signs reading “1525 Rubes Landing Comes with Protesters.”
No one bought the house that day, but Boudreaux said he still worries that he will be forced out. So Occupy protesters will help make sure somebody is on site at all times in case someone tries to repossess it while he is away.
Boudreaux has even placed a symbolic tent inside the picket fence around his front yard, though he plans to let anyone staying there sleep inside the house.
“What I want is simple,” Boudreaux said. “I want Wells Fargo to approve my loan modification so I can stay in my home. I’m open to negotiating or communicating on almost any facet of it.”
But Wells Fargo southeast spokesman Jay Lawrence said it’s not that simple. He said the home is actually owned by a mortgage financing company, which he declined to identify. While the bank originated and wrote the loan for the house and then serviced it, Wells Fargo stopped being involved when it went to foreclosure.
“At this point we have nothing to do with the property,” he said. “We worked for more than two years to help Mr. Boudreaux avoid foreclosure, and unfortunately, we were not successful.”
Lawrence said Wells Fargo has successfully worked with 35,000 homeowners in the Atlanta area to help avoid foreclosure.
Boudreaux said he owes between $7,000 and $8,000 on his house. But he said there are at least 10 other homes in the Jamerson Forest neighborhood to go through foreclosure.
“I love this area, I love this neighborhood,” he said. “My neighborhood is being decimated. If something doesn’t happen, it may be the next to fall.”
Neighbor Diana House, 66, said she lives with her daughter and is working three part-time jobs to get by.
“We just want to stay in our homes,” she said.
Franzen said Occupy’s goal is to help homeowners facing foreclosure stay in their houses. Occupy is now working with Rich Pellegrino of the Cobb United for Change Coalition, who said his organization plans to have a workshop to help homeowners learn how to stand up to the banks.
“The tipping point will come when homeowners, inspired by other homeowners, will open the toolkit and do it on their own,” Franzen said. “Occupy is not an owned brand or a trademark. It’s everyone’s and anyone’s.”
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You started out oin the right track, by trying to work throught the legal system. I strongly believe that by working with the banks, instead of against them, will prove to be successful.
My advice to you is to tell those "occupiers" to get lost as their particular brand of "question authority" tactics will surely result in them loss of your personal credibility especially with anyone you go to for financial help. They are using you. In short; tell those "occupiers" to go take a hike!
I wish you good luck and hope that you will take my advice.
Two years to right the ship and he still could not get things in order? That's pathetic and sad. Don't buy things you cannot afford!
Unfortunately this is what happened to many of us. In the last 3 years we have lost everything that we built up in the past 30 years. We were not over extended. We were a middle class family raising a family and paying our bills. When unemployment and under employment caused us to loose everything....our savings, retirement and finally our home.
We are not pathetic or sad....we are starting over!
I think folks don't realize just how bad things are right now. The housing crisis today is worse them it was during the great depression in Georgia. The tipping point during that era was when communities started moving their neighbors back into homes after bank evictions. It was what our country needed then, it's what we need now.
Every time a house is foreclosed on it becomes a blight on the neighborhood. Yes, some investors are snapping up bargains at pennies on the dollar and renting them out, but many houses are languishing and falling down around their foundations. Why would a bank choose to take a house and get pennies on the dollar when by doing something a small as lowering the interest rate they could save the homeowner hundreds of dollars a month and STILL make hundreds of thousands on the loan over its 30-year life?
Because banks don't care. If you are not a hedge fund manager or a corporation, they don't care. They will write off these losses and watch neighborhoods crumble into dust. Banks love the Occupy movement because it gives people another target ("occupy hobos and deadbeats") instead of allowing citizens to focus on the true issue: banks and their criminal and unethical practices.
Better solutions to these situations are desperately needed. Just as help for our economy is badly needed.
If you'll recall in the article, the bank representative stated that they "worked for more than two years to help Mr. Boudreaux avoid foreclosure." I work for a bank, in commercial credit analysis, and fully understand the process that is taking place here. Banks want to avoid foreclosure because it means they lose money.
Lowering the interest rate will help out in the short run for Boudreaux, but if he can't make the payments and catch up on his debt it's a lost cause. I doubt this guy has much in the home, otherwise he wouldn't be in foreclosure. So, other than having to pick up and move (and lose a couple thousand dollars for making a stupid mistake) he'll be better off in the long run. If he wanted to save himself, he would have short-sold his home to avoid this outcome.
You shacked up with a woman who you did not commit to and marry, then depended on her to help make the mortgage, then she left (imagine that, with no marital incentive to stay, why not).
You are the result of your own screwed up choices. Why should ANYONE else be burdened with your misguided and childish mistakes. You made the (now partnerless bed) and now you have to sleep in it. Your problem, Dude!
Mr. Boudreux has obligations to his neighbors and to society to cobble together a few PT jobs like his neighbor is doing.
While I'm no fan of Wells Fargo, it doesn't excuse Mr. Boudreaux's behavior. It's hard to have pity for someone living rent-free, and blaming his problems on someone else.
I'm also no fan of the banks.....a lot of innocents are being screwed, but this specific instance speaks to a general lack of common fiscal sense.