Southwest Side Community Announces Partnership With Bank of America to Keep Families in Homes

CHICAGO (Map) - CHICAGO, July 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Southwest Side residents stood along side Bank of America officials yesterday to announce a new partnership to combat the foreclosure crisis in the neighborhood and ensure hundreds of families can stay in their homes.

The announcement came after a two-hour meeting with Bank of America officials Andrew D. Plepler, Global Community Impact Executive and President, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, and

Community leaders from the Southwest Organizing Project announced to a crowd of two hundred local residents three key components of the partnership to keep families in their homes on the Southwest side of Chicago: Proactively modify unaffordable loans; Allow families to remain as tenants after foreclosure; and Turn vacant properties into community assets. Local residents erupted in cheers as Plepler told the crowd, they should be "proud of the community advocates who represented their interests" in the meeting and he hoped to see the community "restored to health."

"The foreclosure crisis upon us is the most daunting challenge we've ever faced. The agreement we've entered into with Bank of America, causes hope," said Jim Capraro, CEO, Greater Southwest Development Corporation. "We will begin the methodical work, together, one borrower at a time to seek solutions. But, more importantly we have a top level leadership commitment from the highest level of the bank to imagine and implement new solutions that don't currently exist. This is a good day for our community."

The meeting with Bank of America officials resulted from a direct ask from more than two hundred Southwest Side residents who went to the Gage Park Bank of America Branch at 55th and Kedzie in early May to ask the Branch Manager for a meeting with Bank of America leadership on this issue.

Barbara J. Desoer, Bank of America's President of Mortgage, Home Equity & Insurance Services, in March 2009 remarks to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition said, "None of us can resolve this crisis alone. But I am confident that working together we can build a solid future for homeownership -- based on responsible, sustainable lending practices that help consumers make the right decisions for themselves and their families. The reason Bank of America is committed to partnering with you is simple: We don't succeed unless our communities succeed."

Since January 2008, more than 3,700 homes in the Southwest Side zip codes of 60629, 60632, 60638 and 60652 entered foreclosure. According to numbers compiled by the Southwest Organizing Project, in 2008 Bank of America and its subsidiaries, Countrywide and Lasalle Bank, were responsible for 240 of those foreclosures. Bank of America is on pace to double their numbers in 2009, having already initiated foreclosure on 117 homes in the 1st quarter alone.

"Although we are delighted and encouraged that Bank of America has decided to partner with the Southwest Organizing Project and our neighborhood to address the terrible foreclosure problems that affect so many families," said Rabbi Joshua Salter, Associate Rabbi of Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and a former banker, "I will only be satisfied when concrete relief is felt by our families and their children."

Local Southwest Side HUD-certified housing counseling agencies have tripled their counseling capacity over the last year and still have waits in excess of 3-4 weeks before a resident can even get an appointment. Each counselor has over 50 clients they are working with at any given time. With each client taking up to several months to work out a solution, they are able to impact only a fraction of the more than 3,000 foreclosures that the neighborhood is facing. With over 45,000 foreclosures initiated in Cook County in 2008, and more expected in 2009, the banking industry's insistence on approaching this crisis on a one-at-a-time approach is failing. According to the Woodstock Institute, 98% of homes failed to sell at the initial foreclosure auction in 2008, reverting back to the banks. This dramatically increased the number of boarded-up homes, causing existing home values to plummet, which puts more and more homeowners at risk each day.

The Southwest Side is losing vital community leaders like church lectors, parents involved in schools, local business owners, and block club presidents. The cornerstones of these neighborhoods are eroding as empty lots and boarded up homes become the face of once-emergent communities.

"We want to partner not only with Bank of America but all lending institutions to develop effective strategies that protect the strong network of social and financial investments we have helped build throughout the last thirty years," said Betty Gutierrez, a resident and member of St Mary Star of the Sea Church, a member institution of the Southwest Organizing Project and Board Member of Neighborhood Housing Services, Chicago Lawn/Gage Park. "Our community has worked too hard to watch it all go down the drain because of bad mortgage lending policies -- now is the time for a direct conversation and for a real response from the banks."

The Keep Our Homes campaign is a community partnership of Greater Southwest Development Corporation, the Southwest Organizing Project, and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Lawn/Gage Park, working to address and combat the foreclosure crisis on Chicago's Southwest Side.