Last night, 600 community members from Brockton Interfaith Community (BIC), an affiliate of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network and PICO National Network, met with Chairman Barney Frank, Congressman Stephen Lynch, and representatives from the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston at a town hall meeting on the foreclosure crisis at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Brockton, MA.

At the meeting, Congressman Frank, who as chair of the House Financial Services Committee has been a pivotal leader in Congress in the government's response to the foreclosure and financial crisis, promised to push Treasury further on making needed improvements to the Making Home Affordable Program, embracing BIC's proposals to:

• stop the foreclosure process from proceeding while a loan modification request is pending;
• push for loan modifications that include principal reduction;
• make the Net Present Value formula publicly available, in order to create greater transparency in assessing current value of loans;
• make loan modifications extend over the life of the mortgage, not just five years;
• use TARP funds to help unemployed homeowners stay in their homes.

Chairman Frank also agreed to press federal regulators to extend CRA to all lending activities of banks.
In addition, Federal Reserve representative Sandra Braunstein promised to arrange a meeting between PICO, National People's Action (NPA) and Chairman Ben Bernanke to report back on the nine community hearings that PICO and NPA have held around the country since June.

Before the evening meeting, BIC faith leaders took representatives from the Federal Reserve Board, along with local elected officials, on a bus tour of the city which has ranked as one of the cities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts.  Local residents who have lost their homes, or are in the process of foreclosure, offered testimony about the challenges they've faced in working with their banks to lower their payments.

To help families in the Boston metro area, a representative from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston promised to convene a meeting of banks, community groups, and non-profit loan counseling groups to discuss barriers to loan modifications and policy issues like investor owned loans with the hope of creating greater accountability by banks/servicers to getting these loan modifications done.
For more information about PICO's campaign to keep families in their homes, visit www.piconetwork.org/keepfamiliesinhomes

Media Coverage

"Brockton offers lesson in foreclosures; US officials tour city, see crisis up close," Boston Globe, Nov 2, 2009

"Brockton foreclosure crisis helps spark national solutions; Brockton shows feds pain caused by foreclosures," Enterprise News, Nov 2, 2009

"Bus tour highlights effect of foreclosure crisis in Brockton," New England Cable News, Nov. 2, 2009

"Fed to hold foreclosure meeting in Brockton," Boston Herald, Nov 1, 2009

WBUR, the NPR station of Boston and a local Brockton radio station, interviewed BIC leader Carol Delorey