House Blockade 'Warning' Aims to Stop Foreclosures

Friday, December 12, 2008
Projo.com

The number of home foreclosures in Rhode Island has gotten so bad that several groups are calling for a complete moratorium on them.

Peter Asen, associate director of Ocean State Action, says more than two-thirds of the foreclosures going on right now in Rhode Island are on multi-family homes, often where the tenants have no control over whether mortgage payments are made by landlords, and therefore cannot stop their own evictions.

Ocean State Action, Jobs with Justice and several other groups are among housing advocates threatening to begin blockading foreclosed homes if banks try to evict rent-paying tenants who live there.

The advocates plan to convene outside of 804 Potters Ave., in Providence, at 5:15 this afternoon to issue a warning: try to evict renters at the three-family home in foreclosure there, and banks will face a blockade.

Asen said similar protests are taking place in cities around the country, because housing advocates are frustrated that unlike the banks, working people have received no financial bail-out assistance from the government.

"Even tenants who pay their rent are having the houses they live in being foreclosed on," Asen said, "this is a big problem that we need to raise awareness about."

"This broadly affects whole neighborhoods as well," Asen said. "These homes get vacated and people come in and steal the copper" and vandalize the homes, causing a general decline in city neighborhoods.

"We want to bring together both tenants and home owners to put a moratorium on foreclosures altogether."

Extra: Read Borrowing Trouble, our special report on the impact of foreclosure in Rhode Island, including Foreclosure Fallout, a story about how foreclosure affects renters.

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