'Eminent Domain for the People' Leaves Wall Street Furious [View all]

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/07-4

Published on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 by Common Dreams

' Domain for the People' Leaves Wall Street Furious

Housing justice advocates hopeful about innovative Richmond plan to use public seizure laws to save underwater homes from foreclosure

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Using the authority of state government to actually help people has Wall Street bankers in a panic, spurring threats of aggressive legal retaliation against the town of Richmond, California simply for trying to help some of its struggling homeowners.

'Eminent domain' has long been a dirty term for housing justice advocates who have seen municipalities invoke public seizure laws to displace residents and communities to make way for highways, shopping malls, and other big dollar projects.

But in Richmond, city officials are using eminent domain to force big banks to stop foreclosing on people's homes in an innovative new strategy known as 'Principle Reduction' aimed at addressing California's burgeoning housing crisis.

Richmond became the first California city last week to move forward on a plan that has been floated by other California municipalities to ask big bank lenders to sell underwater mortgage loans at a discount to the city (if the owner consents), and seize those homes through eminent domain if the banks refuse. The city has committed to refinancing these homes for owners at their current value, not what is owed.

City officials launched this process by sending letters in late July to 32 banks and other mortgage owners offering to buy 624 underwater mortgages at the price the homes are worth, not what the owners owe.

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