(This article was written by Jennie S. Bev, Mountain House Action Group Public Relations Committee. Source: Tracy Press. The picture is MHAG’s documentation)

by Jennie S. Bev
October 23, 2009

San Joaquin County is one of the hardest-hit counties in California in this mortgage crisis. And Mountain House was named by New York Times in November 2008 as “the most underwater community in the United States,” as 90 percent of home values there have gone underwater, and the depth of depreciation is as steep as 70 percent.

Those who have been paying skyrocketing monthly mortgage payments and have been receiving reduced earnings are probably feeling the pinch of the economic crisis. Many of them have stopped payments and are facing foreclosure.

With 18.7 million vacant homes this year and 7 million more properties expected to foreclose in 2010 and 2011, this mortgage crisis is more than our neighbors’ issue — it is our own personal issue as well.

Many of us have grown to be skeptical as no one seems to be able to lend a hand. Not attorneys, not government officials, and especially not lenders.

When we started to distrust the system, this man came along.

Bruce Marks was named 2007 Bostonian of the Year, yet his activism affects all of us, including Tracy and Mountain House residents.

From Oct. 16 through Tuesday, Marks and the nonprofit organization he founded, Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, had a colossal Save the Dream tour at the Cow Palace.

I was there, and I was among 25,000 people who were grateful and astonished by the magnitude of this event. Most lenders nationwide, 270 NACA counselors, and a few hundred volunteers provided their services with homeowners’ interest in mind.

As a scholar-activist, I am a hopeful individual. But I always keep an objective view, so by nature I wasn’t too enthusiastic when I first heard about NACA. Today I’m relieved and proud to call myself a NACA member, a Bruce Marks follower, and a loan restructuring activist.

Marks has advocated the public’s interests since 1988 with his debut activism for the Hotel Workers Union in Boston. Today, he is known as “the nonviolent bank terrorist,” as Wall Street Journal named him. He literally “terrorizes” bank CEOs with his strong, pit-bullish words.

Marks has advocated for elimination of a second mortgage scam and has campaigned against predatory lending by going to each bank and having them sign an agreement with NACA. He also won a case against Sen. Phil Gramm, whose Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 removed the separation between consumer and investment banks and has been believed to have caused the current economic and mortgage crisis in the first place.

Bruce Marks is the only name we need to remember when it comes to fighting the foreclosure crisis. Even if you have to fly to the East Coast to attend one of his tours, the effort would be worthwhile.

NACA has more than 1 million members who can testify how their loans have been restructured based on affordability, instead of credit score and how much their net incomes are.

NACA’s underwriting guidelines have proven to result in the lowest default rate nationwide — less than 1 percent — while other nonprofit organizations have showed more than a 2 percent default rate.

“Bruce Marks is a godsend,” one NACA member said at the Cow Palace. With more than 1 million people who agree, no endorsement is too exaggerated.

For the next NACA Save the Dream tour schedule, registration and documents submission guidelines, refer to naca.com.

Jennie S. Bev is a four-year resident of Mountain House, a housing activist, and a columnist for The Jakarta Post. She can be found at MountainHouseActionGroup.wordpress.com and JennieSBev.com.

[This article was previously published in Tracy Press, October 23, 2009.]

Meeting with NACA

In this meeting, the committee were looking for the possibilities to strengthen our bargaining position to achieve Mountain House Action Group’s short term goal that is to help our members and Mountain House residents to stay in their houses. Because of that the committee realized how important it’s to build a network with other organizations and find out the possibilities of working together (It’s a part of our strategy, read: Short-Term Strategic Plan).

For this purpose, we met Mr. Shah. He invited MHAG members and Mountain House (HM) residents who want to stay at their house with affordable monthly mortgage to come to NACA foreclosure prevention workshop which they call NACA’s Save the Dream Tour. Her is the brief information (For more detailed information, click NACA flyer):

Day/Date: Friday, October 16 – Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: 9:00am – 8:00pm
Place: Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva Ave, Daly City, CA 94014

According to Mr. Shah, in this workshop — with the motto Make your Mortgage Payment affordable! Same Day Permanent Solutions — there will be thousands of homeowners will attend this event, and hundreds of Servicers and Lenders staffs are available to restructure their loans on the same day.

The Committee hope this event will help MHAG’s members and MH residents.

(This article was written by Jennie S. Bev, Mountain House Action Group Public Relations Committee. Source: Tracy Press. The picture is MHAG’s documentation)

by Jennie S. Bev
Aug 21, 2009

A week ago, the office of Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and the Mountain House Community Services District co-hosted a Foreclosure Prevention Summit Workshop at Bethany Elementary School in Mountain House.

The resident-led housing activism organization Mountain House Action Group has been involved since the beginning in November 2008 through our advocacy and sharing activities. The event was attended by Bank of America, Chase, Fannie Mae, several Housing and Urban Development Department-approved counselors and more than 150 homeowners.

It was covered by Swiss Public Radio and the Tracy Press.

It is noticeable that the process of loan modification is unclear, due to changing laws and guidelines. Approved HUD counselors so far have been helpful by giving out advice that would protect homeowners’ interests — that’s as opposed to banks, which are likely to focus on their own interests.

Still, I believe that there are many things that can, should and must be improved if loan modifications are to take place appropriately and proportionately. Consumers’ interests must be protected, and it requires more than a few underwriting guidelines.

So far, out of 4 million homeowners who need some sort of mortgage assistance, only 400,000 have been helped, a mere 10 percent. Mortgage giant Wells Fargo merely reduced payments for only 6 percent of its eligible home loans, and Bank of America modified just 4 percent of those in the same category. And they didn’t seem to modify loans outside Obama’s Making Home Affordable program.

MAC and JPMorgan Chase are better, with 20 percent modification rates.

Unfairness in the loan modification process, however, can be reduced — if not eliminated — provided there is a law that would protect the interests of consumers, including home loan borrowers, in force majeure circumstances.

Force majeure is a legal term used to describe an unpredictable event that would hinder the fulfillment of an agreement. In a broad definition, economic crisis can be categorized as this type of event.

In certain circumstances based on macroeconomic calculations, such as today’s recession and foreclosure crisis, consumers should have the right to have their loans (any loans) reconsidered and renegotiated without discrimination.

To this very day, such a consumer right has not been codified into law.

Consumer Protection Law, which is the basis for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy rules, has been quite potent in this crisis. But it is applicable only on a case-by-case basis. What we need is a law that would streamline the colossal process of loan modification by making it a consumer emergency right for economic protection under any force majeure.

If that were the case, lenders would be required to work with consumers to ensure that they can afford their loans.

Another possible idea would be to close loopholes in the loan modification process.

While banking is a regulated industry, today’s foreclosure crisis has set a new bar in loan modification, a process that comes with gaps as big and as wide as the Grand Canyon. These loopholes benefit lenders instead of consumers.

So far, it is common knowledge that most banks would prefer foreclosure to loan modification, because the former would give them cash immediately, while the latter would only give them a negotiable promissory note. And cash, of course, is much more preferable in an economic crisis.

Now is good timing to demand more consumer rights, and we can start with ourselves by writing to our representatives, joining forces with interest groups and writing to the media.

If we don’t act, good citizens will continue to be punished by financial institutions and unfair laws. And we aren’t that dumb to let this situation continue.

_____
Jennie S. Bev is a 2009 Peace Writer at the Joan B. Kroc Peace and Justice Institute at the University of San Diego and a columnist for The Jakarta Globe, and can be found at JennieSBev.com. She is a four-year resident of Mountain House.

by Justin Lafferty

Aug 17, 2009 (Source: Tracy Press, pictures are MHAG’s documentation)

MOUNTAIN HOUSE — As many residents struggle while watching the value of their homes plummet, a group of concerned citizens teamed up with the local congressman to offer help.

The Mountain House Action Group, in conjunction with Rep. Jerry McNerney, hosted a free foreclosure prevention workshop on Saturday, having lenders and counselors meet face-to-face with “underwater” residents, those who owe more than their home is worth.

“Everybody’s here, from all walks of life,” said Beni Bevly of the Action Group. “It’s just like a relief, because we have been working on this since September.”

The congressman also put on a similar event in Brentwood the day before, where he said about 50 families showed up for help.

A couple hundred people trickled in throughout the four-hour event to talk with volunteer representatives from Bank of America, Chase, Freddie Mac and California agencies. Many people were lined up around the corner of Bethany Elementary at the 10 a.m. start time.

“If we can help 50 families stay in their homes, that would be terrific,” McNerney said.

Preston Bayhi said he bought his Tracy home 10 years ago for $180,000, but now it’s worth half as much. He said he came to the workshop to talk with a counselor about his options.

“I’m just trying to figure out what I could do,” Bayhi said. “Will the economy get to where my house is worth 50 grand?”

Homeowners checked in at the front of the Bethany Elementary gym, filled out some paperwork for McNerney’s office about their situation, and waited as lenders and counselors became available.

McNerney also stayed for a while to talk with local homeowners. He said he would offer more of these workshops around congressional District 11 as needed.

“At least we know there’s someone to talk to now,” Mountain House resident Cam Kiliany said. “It’s nice to get in touch with someone to see if we can modify.”

Kiliany said she and her husband bought a home in 2004 for $475,000, but now, she said she hopes it’s worth $300,000.

The workshop was unable to answer every question, though. Mountain House resident Ryan Uyehara said counselors didn’t really tell him much more in person than what he’s learned while talking to them over the phone. The value of his home, he said, has been halved since 2006.

Mountain House has gained notoriety as one of the most underwater areas in the country, but Community Services District board of directors president Eric Payne said things are improving. After talking with Realtor Toni Dalrymple, Payne said 91 homes have been sold so far this year in Mountain House, compared to only 41 in 2008.

Contact Mountain House Press reporter Justin Lafferty at 830-4269 or jlafferty@tracypress.com.

On May 28, 2009, Jonathan Rubin, Jennie S. Bev and Beni Bevly from Mountain House Action Group (MHAG) drove to Stockton, CA to meet Congressman Jerry McNerney. This meeting was different compare to the meeting we had with the Congressman before. This was the follow up meeting regarding the letter we sent to him (to view the letter, click Letter to Congressman) and we agreed to discuss specifically how to help Mountain House residents who were underwater and had the difficulty in paying their mortgages.

Finally, we came out with the result that the Office of Congressman would host the Foreclosure Prevention Summit on:

Saturday, August 15th, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Bethany Elementary School
570 Escuela Drive
Mountain House, CA 95391

For more detail information, please click Mountain House Foreclosure Prevention Summit Flyer 08-15-09

For the first time Mountain House Action Group participated in 4th of July Parade in Mountain House. Grace Valencia as the Project Officer who was in charge for this parade reported that the crowd was taking pictures of MHAG members and clapping hands.

The goal in participating this parade was simple that was to show residents that MHAG exist and has been advocating the needs of our residents’, especially to stay in their houses.

Mountain House Action Group (MHAG) which represented by Jennie S. Bev and Raj Singh presented Mountain House housing case at Democratic Club at Greater Tracy on Wednesday, March 11, 2009.

Following were the points of the presentation:

MHAG is advocating city preservation in which existing residents should be prioritized to stay instead of city stabilization in which residents come and go as long as the city is stable.

Benefits of “city preservation”: First, home owners and residents care more about community, environment and school quality. Second, sense of belongingness as long-term residents are likely to be more responsible and future-oriented.

MHAG Milestones:

First, November 23, 2008: Initiation by 30 residents at MH Central Park. Proactive and refuse to stay still in current housing situation.Dec 13, 2008: This grand meeting attended by more than120 people plus 2 Board of Directors & generated 120 petition signatures. Follow-up meetings at MH Action Group members’ homes and library.

Second, December 17, 2008, Jan 14, 2009 & Feb 11, 2009: Advocating issues at MH Board of Directors public meetings. On February 11, 2009 meeting, MH Board of Directors informed that a letter was sent to Congressional Senators and Representatives urging them to sponsor a bill to assist impact of downturn of Mountain House housing market in last 2 years.

Third, February 7, 2008: Mountain House Volunteer Education Workshop by Dr. Beni Bevly at MH Library also attended by one of the Board of Directors.

Fourth, petition signatures collection: more than 200 collected.

Fifth, interview by Swiss Public Radio twice on current housing situation in Mountain House.

Sixth, sent 222 letters to: President Barack Obama, Senator Barbara Boxe, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congressman Gerald McNerney, Government Arnold Schwarzenegger, Supervisor Leroy Ornellas.

We are urging them to show support by acknowledging its symbolic value by visiting our town to see how promising and –at the same time—how a beautiful American dream is fading. For this, we will be conducting a Housing Summit in April 2009 (Congressman McNerney has agreed to host this Housing Summit on August 15, 2009). And we would appreciate their presence.

We are urging them to support us in making our town the first in line when accepting bailout rescue funding from local, state, and federal governments.For this, we urge them to approve a resolution or any instrument for that matter that would push this agenda forward.
We are urging them to support us any way they can by using our town as a case study, including in publications.

Seventh, March 10, 2009: Attending San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors meeting in Stockton. Meeting with San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors Chairman Leroy Ornellas in his office to talk about letters and petition signatures sent to his office dated Feb 17, 2009.

The PowerPoint from this presentation can be viewed by clicking MOUNTAIN HOUSE SAVING TOWN OF TOMORROW PDF.

On February 7, 2008 Mountain House Action Group (MHAG) conducted Volunteer Education Workshop at 579 Wicklund Crossing, Mountain House CA 95391.

The workshop that attended by approximately 30 volunteers was presented by Dr. Beni Bevly (the author of Managing For Profit Organization in the Flatter World) that consisted of:

1. Background of The United States economy
2. What (and who) caused the downturn of US economy
3. Housing situation, including in Mountain House
4. Program/s available by government and lenders
5. How MHAG formed
6. MHAG vision and mission
7. MHAG strategic plan
8. MHAG action plan
9. FQ&A for volunteers

Here is the PowerPoint that presented in this workshop: Educational Workshop.

Mountain House Action Group (MHAG) had developed a short-term strategic plan. Now most MHAG’s actions are based this plan as you can see below:

On Saturday, December 13, 2008, at the Gazebo at the Wicklund Park, Mountain House, approximately 120 residents of Mountain House including volunteers gathered to find the possible of solving their underwater homes. 109 of them signed a petition for:

1. Re-consider mortgage terms in favor of homeowners by using loan modifications (or other loan instruments) by using fair considerations that would be favorable for all homeowners
2. Apply the best possible interest rate and the best terms that are favorable to homeowners;
3. Assure homeowners to stay at and keep their homes during the process of loan modification;
4. Have the county re-assess the property tax based on current market value as provided by independent assessors;
5. Ensure no negative impact to FICO scores.

As a moderator, Beni lead to begin this meeting by welcoming and reminding everyone to sign up. Since the weather was cold, he also conducted an ice breaking session with “Save our Town” dance. When most people got “warmed up”, he explained the meeting agenda, and asked for suggestions. He emphasized that this activity was not meant to make money and it’s important to unite because by uniting, we are strong. Soon after, the meeting rolled according to the agenda.

1. Background and introducing the volunteers

Venkat explained the background of this meeting as follows:

Good Morning. Thank you for all coming. We appreciate your presence.

I’m Venkat Ranga, I’m living in Mountain House for past 2.5 years.  I work in Silicon Valley like some of you.  I commute between Valley and here 5 days a week.   I live here with my wife Rama and 2 daughters. They go to Wicklund School.

Around 4 years ago, a friend of mine moved into this community; I came to visit him. And I walked around the neighborhood and saw the grand plan of Mountain House. I liked it so much and decided to bring up my family here.  Not only us, there were several other friends bought the place here too. We all live close by and enjoy the company of each other. Most importantly, our kids enjoy the best of it.

However, the recent Mortgage Tsunami has put me in a tough spot. As you may know, most of us bought houses around 800k to 400k. I bought mine upper 600’s.  Today’s worth is just HALF of what I bought.  It is so depressing to see more than decade’s worth savings disappear in front of my eyes and on top of it, I owe the lenders more than my home value today!

“How many of you are in the same situation like me? – Please raise your hands.” Wow – indeed we all caught in the same Tsunami. Around 4 weeks ago, I had a small gathering at my place (like usual). The mood was not joyful at all. Everyone felt that we were caught in the same Mortgage Tsunami (DROWNING). We discussed about what options we have, and responses we got from the lenders.  The answer is NO RESPONSE at all.

We all felt this is certainly not good for us and for the community we believed in. So we decided to send e-mails to the people who we know to discuss about the situation.  We all met on Sunday morning @ 10 AM, believe me; the weather was much worse than today! – There were 30 people showed up.

It was very clear at that moment; we all caught in the same Tsunami.  It is not anymore “ME”, the people who gathered at my place, or those 30 people who came to park. It is whole community.  So we decided to pull together a small group and started discussion on Forum and Yahoo group to share our thoughts.  I appreciate whoever contributed to the forum to make alive.

Again I’m an active volunteer who wants to see our community to grow and flourish and gives the best we all hoped for. Like me, there are other volunteers who contributed their time and effort to support this cause.

To start with Justin – one among those who made a trip to Stockton.  And met with Government officials and staff of Congressman Jerry McNerney. He will talk about the current situation and his findings from Stockton trip.

Jennie can share more about the ideas we have to put together to address the current situation.

Again – Before I conclude; as indicated; I’m an active volunteer who don’t want to see our families, friends and neighbors walk away with broken heart and leave us alone.

Last but not least, we really want to have more volunteers to help us to save the town of tomorrow. Please come forward and sign up.

(Soon after Venkat’s speech, volunteers who did not speak introduced themselves. They were: Devin, Celeste, Bharati, Prabha, Shankar, Ram, Shashi, and Gopi.

2. Current housing situation (Why are we here?)

Justin explained to the audiences the current housing situation (“Why are we here?) as follows:

Good Morning everyone:

I’m here with a group of Mountain House residents who are concerned and care about the future of our town.  I would like to share our view of the situation.

Mountain House is making press about being the number one underwater community in America. Now we are here together to put faces to the issue and work to find a solution. The Mountain House Action Group recently met with our elected state officials to get our voices heard. But we need to get stronger.

90% of homeowners owe more on their mortgages than what their houses are worth.  Out of 1,856 mortgages only 209 homeowners owe less on their mortgages than the value of their home.

There is a crisis looming with 1,647 mortgages requiring immediate rescue.  We could be at the tip of the iceberg in foreclosures in our neighborhood. It’s a big problem.

Most homeowners paid $800,000 to 400,000 for their homes, and now these homes are selling for half the purchase value.  New homes continue to be built; homes sit empty, keeping supply outpacing demand even at rock bottom prices.

Also, mortgages are still going up as ARM loans come to term, many families are burning through or have lost their savings and 401K’s just to hold on.

Good people are giving up, we are seeing our friends and neighbors walking away and abandoning their houses, the town and us. We are seeing one to three bank-owned homes on every block.

It’s scary, foreclosures have a ripple effect, affecting our town, affecting our communicating in ways that go beyond just a financial impact.  Families are hurting.

As proactive Mountain House residents, we have the critical mass to make a difference.  We have reached out to the California home owner’s task force and other groups and we can drive for the following items and more:

1. Bank support of loan modifications for our zip code
2. Assure homeowners to stay at and keep their homes during the process of loan modification;
3. Re-assess the property tax based on current market value
4. Ensure no negative impact to credit scores

With these goals in mind, we need your support to help ensure we all stay here in the “Town of Tomorrow”. Thank you.

3. Possibilities results (not a promise)

The possibilities results of Mountain House Residents Saving the Town of Tomorrow volunteer was explained by Jennie as follows:

Hello Everybody,

a. First of all, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Jennie Bev. Just like all of you, my husband Beni and I are Mountain House residents. We have been living here since May 2005, so it has been 3.5 happy years. We love our home very much and we love the community here.

I have been involved in Mountain House and Tracy communities through my writings in Mountain House Press and Tracy Press. I have been writing the Town Crier and opinion sections in the middle of the paper. I’ll be writing more columns for them in the future.

b. As my fellow volunteers have talked about this community movement, since we all are just people like you, our neighbors, we provide no promises. Especially because every homeowner has a different situation. However, as long as we unite, we have a critical mass and bargaining  position to be heard by authorities and financial institutions.

c. So far we have been able to reach Congressman Jerry McNerney, Congressman Cordoza, Assemblywoman Galgiani, and Supervisor-Elect Villapudua. We will be meeting Congressman McNerney again this afternoon. As a community, we will fight to reach higher levels, including President-Elect Obama if we need to.

Other than those government officials, we also have reached out to Non-Profit Organizations. They were established to help out homeowners who are underwater. These two organizations are PACT = People and Congregations Together and Homeowner Task Force. They will be helping homeowners like us to ensure that we are heard by financial institutions. They provide services with no charge. Because they are activists and they are organized activists.

Regarding our conversations with the representative of Congressman Jerry McNerney, there are at least two milestones in this community effort to note. First, he showed sympathy to homeowners like us and wholeheartedly supported our activism. Second, he is currently pushing the new administration under Obama to pay more attention to homeowners like us.

These are not just promises. These are a congressman’s promises and we will keep on reminding him on these.

d. After this meeting, we will go to Stockton Foreclosure Fair from 1-6pm. This is one of PACT and Homeowner Task Force’s activities and we have been invited. Information on car-pooling will be provided after this meeting.

However, let us reiterate that this community activism does not promise anything and you MUST NOT give out personal information to anybody. You must be very careful in selecting possible loan modifications or refinance that is suitable for your situation.

Conclusion:

We are just people like you, our neighbors, who are looking for ways to reduce the monthly payment of our home mortgage to keep afloat. And the best help we can give to ourselves must come from ourselves. Thank you.

4. Questions & Answers

This session, there were several question and statements as follows:

1. There were seminars/workshops available. (From volunteers’ point of view, this was a commercial statement from one of the participants. And she gave out her flyers.)
2. Anybody in the group had their loan modified? Ajay Varma answered that he was working with his bank to get his loan modified and is still in the process.
3. How does the group plan to reach out more people and to collect more signatures from them? Venkat Ranga replied that we planned to go door to door to get the signatures and for that we would need more volunteers.
4. One of the participants shared about his financial hardships and how hard it was for him to pay his mortgage.
5. Other participant reminded everyone to be careful to give out personal information to any party.

5. Volunteering

Azad explained how important to sign up as a volunteer and how to do that. Below are his words:

Dear Friends,

Thank you all once again for coming here on this chilly morning.  This shows how determined we all are in saving our “Town of Tomorrow”, today!

Briefly, my name is Azad and my wife is Syamala.  We have two sons Sasank 14 and Rushil 4.   Four years back we moved in here with great dreams and like most us here, we fear those dreams are turning out to be nightmares.

I am given the task of discussing on the next steps that we need to take after today’s meeting.  I will try to make this short and please consider this as vote of thanks also.

We won’t be here today if we want/planning to abandon our homes OR if our banks were to listen to us.  Most of us must have already tried to talk to their Bank, I did.  However as long as we are good customers paying our monthly mortgage automatically Banks do not want to listen to us, they think that they won’t lose us. Unfortunately that is the mindset.  At the same time we do not want to destroy our credit profiles which we have carefully built over number of years.

So, what to do?

This is where we think we have strength in numbers. With 90% of MH residents under water may be if we all can come together may be we can do something. Self help is best help.  If a person virtually unknown 4 years back can become President of this great country, may be, just may be we all together can do something and get some help.

We believe Banks have a vested financial interest here, they do not want 1500 or 2000 more homes to end up as bad assets in their books in the next 1 or 2 years, especially when every 3^rd or 4^th house is ending up in fore-closure.  If we have information as to who they are, especially if there are only a couple of major banks as lenders then we believe our task of convincing them will be easier.

It also gives these financial institutions a huge publicity/image building opportunity that they are listening to the families of America and saving homes town by town.  With MH being number one town in US with 90% homes in negative equity we believe with numbers we can convince Banks to see this as a great opportunity.

Plan: During the next several weeks this is what we propose to do.

Go door-to-door – share, listen and catalog the horror stories. In numbers we have strength, united we have strength. Explain this plan of action and convince fellow residents of MH that together WE CAN.

Once we have numbers we have strength.  We have a brand new CSD governing board.  We would like to explore possibilities on how we can involve CSD.

Then we would like to approach Congress Man’s and Senator’s offices and may be even Governor’s Office.

Once we have information on the lending institutions we plan to approach their senior officials as mentioned earlier convincing them that it is a great opportunity and is in everyone’s interest that they should come to MH and help save the HOMES and the city.

For all this we need volunteers, ideally one or two volunteers for every street. We should know personally every MH homeowner’s story.  MH is a small geographical area and we can cover it.  Next few weeks are holiday season, most of us should be able to spare time, and people will also be more likely to be home giving us great opportunity to complete this task.  So please sign up to be a volunteer, tell all your friends and neighbors about this grass-roots movement to save our community and if possible enlist their support.

We have beautiful homes, good schools and great community; let us not abandon all this.  Together we can fight and save our community.

Once again, self help is best help and together we CAN DO IT.

Thanks

Azad

12/13/2008

6. Stockton Foreclosure Fair

As soon as the meeting adjourned, 28 people, including volunteers, went to Stockton Foreclosure Fair, which presented by Homeowner Task Force and intended to meet Congressman Jerry McNerney.

At that fair, we found out housing counselors, Washington Mutual and Countrywide were there. Unfortunately, Congressman McNerney was not present. At this point, we observed, talked to the event coordinators, and learnt to enrich our knowledge and relations.

Homeowner Task Force asked us to present Mountain House housing case at the podium. All of us who were there stood at the podium behind Justin who read “Current housing situation (Why we are here?)”

7. Next Steps

Volunteers were planning to:

1. Continue to ask Mountain House residents to become volunteers.
2. Collect as many as possible signatures from Mountain House residents.
3. Bring Mountain House housing case to parties who would support us.
4. Conduct a workshop in Mountain House, where government, housing counselors, lenders and homeowners can sit together and find the solution.

To observe holidays, there will be no activity from volunteers that involving Mountain House residents at large until January 2009.