Detroit mayoral candidates talk foreclosure

Mayoral candidates at ACORN's forum (Photo: Minehaha Forman)

Home foreclosure was at the top of the agenda Monday evening at the Detroit mayoral candidate forum hosted by ACORN and the International Detroit Black Exposition at St. Paul AME church on the city’s east side.

The nine candidates who attended — Freman Hendrix, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans, State Rep. Coleman Young Jr., Rev. Nick Hood III, D. Etta Wilcoxon, Jeroll Sanders, Stanley Christmas, Donald Bradley and Duane Montgomery — discussed the urgency of the foreclosure situation in Detroit and proposed solutions to it.

Foreclosure attorney and ACORN activist Jerry Goldberg set the tone, pushing for a state of emergency moratorium on all foreclosures in Michigan.

“I’ve been absolutely appalled at the insensitivity shown by all the politicians in Lansing … especially by Gov. Granholm, who has refused to deal with the issue and put a moratorium on foreclosures,” he said.

Goldberg applauded Evans in his decision to halt all foreclosure sales in Wayne County. A foreclosure sale is an auction sale of property held by the sheriff after eviction with a court order to seize and sell the property to pay a judgment. “Evans got it right,” he told the crowd of about 150 people. “As an attorney, what he has done is 100 percent legal.”

The forum allowed people from the audience who are going through the process of foreclosure to ask the candidates questions and seek advice.

A woman identified as Ms. Thomas was facing an eviction. “As of Saturday I will be losing my home,” she told the panel of candidates. “I don’t know who to talk to anymore. I will be in the streets.”

Hendrix was the first candidate to respond and said he understood the sense of urgency to ease the foreclosure crisis.

“I support strong protesting acts – marching, kicking down doors — but I think there are things within the mayor’s control right now that can start pushing this agenda forward,” he told Thomas.

He suggested moving the forfeiture office, which currently resides in the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., a public/private city agency, to the mayor’s office. “That signals a level of sensitivity and hands-on involvement and raised to the point of top priority. In the city’s list of priorities,” he said.

Hendrix also added that he would earmark Detroit’s $47 million Neighborhood Stabilization Fund to mitigate some of the foreclosure problem.

D. Etta Wilcoxon responded second, saying she would push for a three-year moratorium on foreclosures.

“There’s no bailout on the Ms. Thomas level,” she said. “ACORN has asked us to sign on to a one-year moratorium, and I think that’s laudable, but it’s not the solution. A year is not a sufficient amount of time.”

Wilcoxon called for an immediate amendment to bankruptcy law allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages already in bankruptcy court.

Duane Montgomery responded by applauding Evans for his “political tricks.”

“We have a sheriff who stepped up even though the press said it was a political trick of some sort … I’m glad he’s done it. Push us for more political tricks,” he said to laughter and applause.

Montgomery did not list any actions he would take as mayor to address home foreclosure and told Thomas that since she was now facing eviction there was little she could do to reverse the process. He suggested she “petition 36th district court for a re-hearing and ask the judge for additional time.”

He noted that if she filed for bankruptcy, then “loan modification is out the window,” he said.

The next audience member to speak about experiencing foreclosure was Gloria Davis, a recent retiree who could not pay both her mortgage and her taxes with her pension and fell three months behind on her mortgage payment.

“My taxes are so high, and my mortgage… I don’t have enough money, so I fell behind,” Davis said.

Donald Bradley responded to Davis’ situation first. He did not cite any specific actions he would take as mayor to help people like Davis.

“I want to encourage you as your mayor to stand behind me when I make that decision of what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’ll go to the county and go to the state,” said Bradley, who seemed uncomfortable making public remarks. “I might have to go to jail for you. I’d do it. I would suggest you move back into those [foreclosed] homes.”

“Like we need another mayor in jail,” one woman in the crowd shouted.

Second to respond was Stanley Christmas. “We’re going to work this problem out,“ he said after reading a list of tips he got from the Internet on how to avoid foreclosure, including “Don’t avoid the problem” and “Don’t get caught in foreclosure scams.”

The last candidate to respond was Jeroll Sanders who did not cite any local actions she would take.

“As mayor, my first course of action would be to get on a plane to Washington, D.C.,” she said. “A moratorium is an absolute necessity.” She urged everyone to call his or her representatives in Congress, naming John Conyers and “everybody who represents us, including the White House” to ask for a national moratorium.

“Maybe we do need to move people right back to their houses after they’ve been evicted,” she said. “If you elect me as mayor you will not have a more fierce advocate … I will have a voice in the national discussion on this.”

The last question came from a recently unemployed woman named Diane whose 89-year-old mother is two weeks away from foreclosure. She said she didn’t know what to do during the foreclosure redemption period, so she started making calls.

“I’ve contacted a housing agency, contacted ACORN, … Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Hansen Clarke … no one could tell me what to do during this redemption period,” she said. “I have nothing. We’re two weeks away from eviction.”

Coleman Young Jr., responded first, suggesting a plan to keep people’s taxes paid off so they are not rolled into foreclosure for nonpayment.

“What we could do is work with people on their taxes to keep them in their homes,” he said, noting that it had been done in other states. He said he would work to set up a mortgage insurance corporation funded by bonds, and a housing development authority.

“There are people who are burning their houses to collect insurance money in order to feed themselves and their family,” he said. “We need to keep people in their homes.”

When it was Evans’ turn to speak, he immediately stood up and signed the ACORN pledge, which included instituting a one-year moratorium on foreclosures; prohibiting the city from doing business with or supporting any business that won’t support a moratorium on foreclosures; using city resources to return foreclosed properties to low-income families, and stopping foreclosures for nonpayment of city taxes.

He said there was a disconnect between what the candidates were saying and what people were saying.

“What people are saying out here is, ‘We’re dying. Our houses are going,’” Evans said, calling for a collective effort among public officials to take immediate action.

“This is not an issue where you have to be the mayor to do something,” he said. He said he wanted to force lenders to renegotiate mortgages. He said in Wayne County alone there were 400-600 foreclosure sales a week, and his action to halt foreclosure sales was something he could do immediately.

Evans got the most applause from the group, which seemed pleased with his ban on foreclosures in Wayne County.

Hood arrived an hour late to the forum so he missed the chance to respond to the audience questions on foreclosures. He did answer a question on neighborhood development, saying he wanted to see the quality of life in Detroit improve.

One woman in the audience said she wished the topic of the forum was not limited to foreclosures only.

“Seventy-five percent of the people of Detroit are facing other problems,” said Dorothy Jean Cleaver. “They never opened the questions to the general public. My concern is with the Detroit police response time, not home foreclosures.”

Another audience member said he didn’t hear enough specifics. “The bottom line is you gotta bring some jobs here — how?” asked Kenny Halloway. “I listened and still didn’t get the answers I wanted to hear.”

Willie Spirie, another community member said while he didn’t learn anything new from the candidates, the debate opened his eyes to some serious issues. “It helped put fire under me to fight this issue,” he said.

Afterward, Hendrix told Michigan Messenger that he thought the debate was productive, but that some candidates didn’t focus on what they could control as mayor.

“I don’t need to get on my knees and beg the Legislature, “ he said. “I’m not sending a letter to the governor, I’m going to meet with the governor.”

Instead, he said he would build a coalition with mayors of cities facing similar problems as Detroit, such as Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia, to work to fix those problems. He also said he would tap the National Conference of Mayors and the Conference of Black Mayors to work collectively on problems.

The next mayoral forum will be held on Feb. 19 at Bert’s in Eastern Market at 6 p.m. The focus of the forum will be upcoming Detroit ballot proposals.