Latino Families Scramble to Keep Homes

In an editorial on the looming mortgage crisis, the NYTimes (Myths Spun by Lax Lenders - 7.10.07) noted that...

Mortgage defaults are rising, and worse is yet to come. Between now and the end of next year, the interest rates on $660 billion in adjustable-rate mortgages will increase for the first time. Over half of that is in subprime loans — those made to borrowers with weak credit — and is at high risk of default as monthly payments rise.

That same week, MarketWatch issued this warning (by Ruth Mantell, Minority Families Face Wave of Foreclosures - 7.6.07):

More than a quarter million black and Hispanic families are expected to lose their homes in the next few years due to foreclosure. For many, the financial trouble will be traceable to a mortgage they should never have been given.

The reason? According to Mantell...

The heads of these households signed up for mortgages that appeared affordable, some with enticingly low starter rates. But what they were really agreeing to were loans with ultimately onerous terms, high costs and prepayment penalties that make refinancing the loan difficult.

As predicted, Latinos and Africans Americans have begun losing their homes in large numbers. Enlace's Hiram Soto (translated by New American Media's Elena Shore) captures this evolving story in Latino Families Scramble to Save Homes.

Araceli Flores was so happy to buy a three-bedroom house that she didn’t ask many questions about the mortgage. “Everything I’ve achieved is suddenly falling apart.”

What's encouraging is that Latinos are a spunky people--and many of the homeowners are scrambling to preserve their hard-earned piece of the American Dream. However, the combination of expensive loans, language barriers and the unscrupulous practices of real estate agents, mortgage brokers and lawyers is too much for them to overcome.

Thankfully, a Latino professionals are mobilizing with the goal of providing assistance to distressed homeowners.

With volunteers from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Agents at the forefront, this coalition has begun offering clinics in Spanish to provide one-on-one help for families that have problems paying their mortgage. The workshops have been crowded to maximum capacity, with experts analyzing each family on a case-by-case basis and lawyers available to help with any irregularities.

Of course, much more needs to be done by the government, financial institutions, the real estate industry and by civic organizations to educate and protect new home buyers.

However, it is unconscionable that Latinos and African Americans are 2.5 times more likely than whites to receive risky, high-cost loans--even when they have similar credit. Where are the civil rights groups, prosecutors, Congress and the Courts?

Related:

Disparities persist between white, minority mortgage applicants
Foreclosure Wave Bears Down on Immigrants
More minorities denied mortgages
Subprime Loan Sharks
Minority Borrowers Steered Toward Predatory Loans
Mortgage Discrimination Is Alive And Well
US: Banks prone to sell minorities pricey loans
Wealthier minorities still face loan rejection

A Coalition in Defense of the Khalil Gibran International Academy Calls for An Investigation

The Khalil Gibran International Academy controversy in New York City will not go away--and no should it! The dismissal of the small themed high school's founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, largely because a group of hysterical bigots wanted her head, was shameful.

A pro-KGIA coalition of individuals and organizations has formed. It's Communities in Support of KGIA and today it issued these two statements:

1) an expression of support for the KGIA and Ms Almontaser; and 2) a demand that the New York City Council investigate the sequence of events leading up to Ms Almontaser’s forced resignation and to make public the results by October 15, 2007.

The Coalition is broad, and it includes many prominent New Yorkers. Here's what a few of the group's members have to say:

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz called the attacks and insinuations against her "disgraceful, xenophobic, and racist."

Rabbi Michael Paley said, "If Debbie Almontaser is painted in that way, then no one is safe."

NYC Councilman Robert Jackson was emphatic: "What happened to her is wrong. What's happening to the school is wrong. And we're standing up and saying that we must correct that injustice.

The outrage is best expressed by the words of Dr. Michelle Fine, a professor at City University of New York, and her mother, Rose:

"Given her long history as a peace educator in New York City, and her vital role in coalition building post 9/11, the loss of Almontaser as Principal of KGIA throws a shadow of shame on us all: what my mother, Rose Fine, a Jewish immigrant from Poland would call a "shande"—a deep, penetrating shame that
saturates the soul of our civic community."

Shande, indeed!

Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" Speech -- August 28, 1963

NYers Rally in Support of Debbie Almontaser

Two hundred or so protesters gathered outside NYC Department of Education Monday evening in support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

These are excerpts from Jennifer Medina's write-up (Protesters Seek Leader’s Return to Arabic School, NYTimes - 8.21.07):

The group — a mix of students, parents, teachers and activists from a wide range of organizations — blamed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein for the school’s struggles, saying they did not do enough to help the founding principal, Debbie Almontaser.

“This is nothing more than demonizing and vilifying a woman and an entire group of people. Anyone who knows Debbie knows that she is a woman of peace. I am furious that the Department of Education did not support her.” parent Deborah Howard

To that, people in the audience began chanting “bring Debbie back.”

Report reveals discrimination against Latino workers

A new survey, Diversity in the Workplace (Report reveals discrimination against Latino workers (La Tribuna Hispana USA via IPA - 7.3.07), found that one-third of respondents had suffered discriminatory practices at work.

In accordance with the anti-Latino campaigns of the right, the survey found that Latinos are under siege in the American workplace, too. Here are some of the survey findings:

1) 15% of Latinos said that they have received a racist insult at work.
2) 25% of Latinos feel he or she is paid less and has fewer possibilities to progress in his or her career, compared to their white colleagues.
3) 26% of Latinos rank as serious discrimination or unequal treatment they've suffered.
4) 29% of Latinos say they suffer discrimination or unequal treatment at least once a week; 18% indicated that it occurs once a month; and 31 percent said that it occurs one to three times a year.

The most frequent discriminatory or unjust practices report by Latinos include:

1) not receiving credit for one’s own work (53 percent)
2) colleagues talking about fellow workers behind their backs (41 percent)
3) not receiving raises or bonuses (38 percent)
4) having concerns dismissed or not taken seriously (37 percent)
5) feeling that one’s ideas and opinions are generally ignored (34 percent)
6) being passed over for raises (32 percent).
7) paid less than their white colleagues, despite having the same skills and experience (22%)

Sound familiar? Had Enough? Visit ¡Ya basta! and sign the petition.

Is Levy Getting His Comeuppance? Part 4: The No Deal Deal

All the major players--Steve Levy, Speaker Sheldon Silver, the minority caucus and now, Governor Spitzer--are all on board with the deal.

The Deal?

Levy shuts up and allows the state to establish a hiring hall for day laborers somewhere in Suffolk County, and the minority caucus gives its OK to the re-authorization of a Suffolk County sales tax.

That's the deal.

Oh, Levy was in Albany for "personal" business. I take that to mean that he was being enlightened beyond the tool shed kept by state Democrats just for such instances.

Apparently, also part of the deal is that Levy is allowed to continue claiming that there's no deal.
Call it the "No Deal Deal" Wink, wink. Hey, it's New York politics.

I'd love to know if laying off of Assemblyman Phil Ramos was part of the No Deal Deal?

Read Levy will lay low on issues to ease standoff and Spitzer Weighs In on Suffolk Dispute — and Aqueduct’s Future.

Is Levy Getting His Comeuppance? Part 2

The tabling by State Assembly Democrats of a Suffolk County sales tax hike is being viewed as a stinging rebuke to Steve Levy, who has made combating illegal immigration a central theme of his administration.

Here's what county legislator, former Assemblyman and Levy ally, Thomas Barraga (R-West Islip), said about the Assembly's unprecedented move: "It has to be very embarrassing for the county executive."

Well, I'm not sure it's all that embarrassing to Steve Levy. As a former wrestler with a napoleanic complex, it seems to me that Levy loves the contact. His instinct? To pin the opponent--and without an actual challenger to his county crown, the opponent is now local Assemblyman Phil Ramos. And he's called Ramos out.

Threatening "draconian cuts," and laying the blame squarely on Ramos, Levy jabs that "[i]t won't be pretty--and it's all going to be on Ramos".

To make clear that Levy relies on stroking the nativist chord, his ally county legislator Joseph Carracappa (R-Selden) threw this low blow to the Assembly's Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat:

"There is no room for compromise. You don't negotiate with terrorists and that's basically what this guy is."

Espaillat's response: "Those are very strong words. I'm very discouraged that that kind of rhetoric is happening in Suffolk. It doesn't lead to healing, and it doesn't lead to the solution of any problems."

The good news is that Levy the Bully now has to deal with people his own size--politically speaking. And that should bode well for all New Yorkers.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

See Levy battles, but Suffolk may pay in taxes and Is Levy Getting His Comeuppance?

Is Levy Getting His Comeuppance?

Is Levy Getting His Comeuppance?

They say that what goes around comes around--and it appears to be true in the case of Suffolk County's lead Latino immigrant antagonizer Steve Levy.

It's well established that Steve Levy uses the power of his office to harass his county's most vulnerable residents: non citizen Latino immigrants. He's gotten away with his tactics thus far because none of the mostly white suburban--Republican and Democratic--politicians have had the courage or conviction to stand up to the populist bully.

That's why it was welcomed news when state legislators from his own party, appalled by his cheap nativistic tactics, sent Levy a message to back off or else.

A group of 30 state Assembly members joined in an effort to denounce Levy for inciting anti-immigrant sentiment. Recognizing yet another opportunity to stroke the local Knownothing chord, Levy basically told group of African American and Latino urban representatives to take a hike.

But Levy is counting on the state's legislature--among other favors--to renew a hike in the local sales tax. Apparently, that'll ensure an additional $500 million in funds to spend from a nearly $3 billion county spending budget.

The problem for Levy is that nativism in a state like New York doesn't go over very well with most Democrats--especially those representing districts of color. Additionally, Democrats control the statehouse and the legislature's lower chamber--and the minority caucus has a great deal of influence at both levels.

So Levy the bully needs the votes of the very legislators who are most opposed to his tactics against vulnerable immigrants of color.

The way New York operates permission to raise a local (or any) tax will happen. However, it'll be interesting to see how things play out between Levy and the group of minority state legislators. Levy has told the legislators this week to shove it.

In time we'll see exactly who ends up shoving it.

In the interim, one specific place to watch for a local response to the stand-off is in the re-election bid of Assemblyman Phil Ramos-- Suffolk's only minority state representative and a member of the group of 30. With the backing of the local Democrat, Republican, Conservative and the Independence parties, Levy could seek to toppled Ramos.

My guess is that Levy will find some way to appease the legislators, get his sales tax increase and continue stoking the chord.

Stay tuned.

Levy livid as Albany stalls tax (Newsday - 6.22.07) and
NY State Democrats Denounce Steve Levy's Anti-Immigrant Policies (American Taino - 5.08.07)

Obama Warns of 'Quiet Riot' Among Blacks

Obama Warns of 'Quiet Riot' Among Blacks (By Bob Lewis, AP - 6.5.07)

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.

The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.

"This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane.

"All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said.

Obama's criticism of Bush prompted ovation after ovation from the nearly 8,000 people gathered in Hampton University's Convocation Center, particularly when he denounced the Iraq war and noted that he had opposed it from the outset.

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We Need Latino Greens

Latinos and African Americans have a greater stake in a Green agenda because we are disproportionately affected by air and water-borne contaminants.

As this article points out, many of our children can't even go out for fresh air because the our neighborhoods are basins for deadly toxins.

Consider these frightening statistics from Collen Long's NY teens ready to gauge air pollution (AP -5.31.07):

More than 90 percent of Hispanics and 86 percent of blacks in the U.S. live in urban settings, which are typically at higher risk for air pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Hispanics are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanics to live in places that fall short of EPA standards for airborne particle matter.

What's truly sad is that the major political parties and leaders have allowed this contamination to happen for so long. They sometimes give lip service to the issue but allow the pollution to continue. Imagine the damage that's caused when a person from infancy has breathed, bathed in and consumed the mixture of toxins that get pumped into their neighborhoods. Then we wonder why some children have difficulty learning, or why there's such a high incidence of asthma and other environmentally determined illnesses.

It's the polluted environment, stupid!

It's a form of discrimination--environmental discrimination. And it's dead wrong!

Click here to read about the Toxic Avengers, a group of Latino students that exposed the deadly impact of an incinerator on the health of a whole community in Brooklyn.

BTW: Why is it that the people warring against immigrant workers are also that same people that believe environmentalists are misguided?

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