The Neighborhood Assistance Coalition of America, the nation?s only nonprofit mortgage broker, is setting aside $1 billion to rescue victims of predatory lenders to help stem what it called the “bloodbath” of foreclosures nationwide. NACA also is calling for a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures and is organizing victims around the country to rally against lenders that profit off their hardship.
“We are seeing a tsunami of foreclosures due to predatory lending practices across the country,” NACA chief executive officer and lawyer Bruce Marks said. “Until NACA, no one has stepped up to help the victims with a nationwide program. We are committing $1 billion to stop the bloodbath and providing fixed-rate mortgages one point below the prime to the victims. Our message to victims is ?there is hope.? The message to predators that were driven by greed to steal the money and dreams of hardworking families is ?step up, or the consequences will be severe.? ”
Marks, a Harvard-trained lawyer, established NACA in 1988 after successfully suing nearly every bank in America for unfair lending practices and recovering more than $10 billion to help hundreds of thousands of families buy homes.
“I got suckered into an adjustable-rate mortgage through a subprime lender that went from 4.5 percent to 13 percent, taking my payments from $1,300 a month to nearly $4,000,” Mark Allen of Upper Marlboro said. “When I lost my job, I couldn?t keep up and was also unable to get refinanced when the market shifted and my appraisal didn?t hold up. I lost my home and my investment.”
NACA is calling on the lenders, investment banks, brokers and others to modify their loans on the terms for which borrowers initially were qualified. The resets, which often double the initial interest rate, are causing massive foreclosures and destabilizing communities, Marks said.
“Last year, Goldman Sachs paid out $1 billion in bonuses from profits they made from stealing from working people,” Marks said. “They along with companies like Lehman Brothers have created and profited from a scheme that is structured so that the borrower fails.”
“On Saturday, April 21, we are inviting anyone who has an unaffordable mortgage or is at risk of foreclosure to come to our Baltimore office at 2:00 p.m.,” said Ashidda Khalil of NACA?s Baltimore office at 1 Mount Royal Ave. “We will work to refinance the borrowers through our mortgage products or work with the lender to modify the loan.”
