Occupy protesters focus on foreclosure

SOUTHGATE, Mich., Dec. 6 (UPI) — Occupy Detroit demonstrators rallied Tuesday to protest the eviction of a couple from a metropolitan Detroit home.

The Occupy Detroit protesters were among about 20 people who protested Fannie Mae’s scheduled Jan. 2 eviction of auto mechanic Rob Henry and his wife, Debbie, from the Southgate home in which they have lived they since 2004, The Detroit News reported.

The couple said Bank of America had not told them their mortgage was sold to Fannie Mae and they now owe $170,000 but the News said the house was valued at a much lower price. The couple has struggled to pay the mortgage since Debbie Henry stopped working after suffering a stroke in 2008.

The Henrys turned to Occupy Our Homes, a nationwide protest focusing on foreclosures whose members joined Occupy Detroit protesters, families and neighbors at the rally.

“This Occupy movement is the only thing that’s going to get us through this,” Debbie Henry said. “If we lose our home, we don’t know what will happen.”

The national Occupy movement designated Tuesday a “National Day of Action” against foreclosures.

Occupy Detroit protesters also were to rally at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Detroit home of a tenant who has received an eviction notice, the News said.

“Every hard-working American family deserves a place to call home out from under the threat of eviction and homelessness,” said Shannon McEvilly, a spokeswoman for Occupy Our Homes and a member of Occupy … [read more] Continue reading →

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Rachel Maddow, Dec. 6

COVER STORY

A squat in time

Looking to reclaim one piece of the hood

By Curt Guyette

PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 7, 2011

In some ways, the Occupy Detroit movement, especially now that it has moved out of downtown’s Grand Circus Park, is like a spider web, with strands shooting off in various directions but still connected, even if sometimes tenuously.

Some in the movement are focusing on the electoral process. Others see education — especially in terms of economics and political power structures — as the area of primary focus. For others, both here and in other cities, it is something they call Occupy the Hood.

In this case, the Hood is a cluster of vacant houses along Goldengate, a few blocks south of Seven Mile between Woodward and John R.

The idea is simple enough: Begin reclaiming neighborhoods one house at a time.

Which is why a small group of people are working on a cluster of four houses, trying to make them habitable.

In a way, this neighborhood — parts of which look as if it’s been hit by bombs — seems a universe away from the gleaming towers of Wall Street. In fact, though, there is a direct connection between there and here.

Eric Sewell, 48, explains how it all ties together, sitting on a folding chair in a room that has no heat.

As the mortgage industry … [read more] Continue reading →